Scars
by jlthdprgy
Summary: "Although their name is known by all, the full story behind these two women has been left up to nothing but imagination for all time. A scar. A father. A death. And an airbender. Most people shy away from this one, but there is something about you, something that people like. They'll like talking to you, which makes you perfect for this. Your topic: Lin and Toph Beifong."
1. Prelude

**/* This a new, shorter story I wrote. Same universe as my other one, Eden, but there is really no need to read that one to be able to follow this one. Similar writing style, different storytelling style. I jump around time periods. Events take place before season 1 of Korra. Experimenting with writing somewhat with this one. Hope you enjoy */**

**-**Prelude-

The phone rang. It was the phone call he had been waiting on for days. Dusk. He had dozed off, but the sound of the phone ringing after what seemed like an eternity of the most unsettling silence jolted him awake.

Tenzin sat up in his bed and reached for his phone. He knew the only person it could be.

"Lin," he said, certain in his greeting. "What is happening?"

"Tenzin." It was her. She sounded neither worried nor urgent. Just calm. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I am fine. Where are you? What is going on?" Tenzin said, trying to get to the point. She spoke slowly.

"I think...I figured it out. All of it."

"You know who it is!" Tenzin said, a statement that would have offered him much relief if it was not being drowned in dread for what Lin would do next.

"Yes. I know who it is," she said, her voice low. No emotion. "I have already informed the press that the situation is under control. The city need no longer fear another threat. I will make sure of that."

"Lin, what are you planning on doing?"

"Whatever I have to. I am going alone. I need to ask you something. I need you to meet me at the clock tower. At midnight."

"Please, Lin. I know you are angered by what has happened. Don't let yourself be controlled by it. Don't let my involvement fuel your hatred. Don't seek vengeance."

Lin was silent. Tenzin could hear her breathing. He knew it was not simple for her. She had difficulty in choosing forgiveness. He did not understand why. It scared him that Lin was not agreeing with him immediately, that she was confused, that she was actually considering taking the life of another man.

"Lin, it's just another case. Don't take this too far. If you do this, if you let your anger overpower you, you will regret this for the rest of your life. It will haunt you..."

"You don't understand, Tenzin. It's not just another case. It's not just another criminal. Please, just promise you will meet me there…"

"I know this man has shaken you. Shaken your wits and threaten the ones you care for but you will just have to accept that these things will happen, Lin. Giving in to hatred will not solve anything. It will not help you. Make an arrest, send him to prison for life, whatever! Just please don't choose revenge..."

"Tenzin, please...just meet me at the clock tower. Goodbye." Lin hung up the phone.

Tenzin had no idea what was happening, but after that phone call he was not going to be sleeping tonight until he talked to Lin. Feeling jittery and in no mood to stay put, Tenzin left his lonely bedroom on Air Temple Island and made his way to the clock tower to meet his girlfriend. It was ten in the evening. Rather than airgliding his way up to the top of the tower like he used to do as a young man, he took the stairs up to the roof, where there was a small balcony overlooking the city, just underneath the gigantic clock that chimed eleven O'clock by the time he got there.

Lin was not there, as expected. Tenzin paced the length of the balcony for almost an hour, waiting for her. Walking by the chalk drawings on the pillars. The drawings of his face next to hers. Together. Cute, childish drawings, reminding him of his past with her. Reminding him of how she used to be. His heart raced, thoughts going through his mind of where she had gone. What she had done. Where underneath that blanket of bright lights beneath him was Lin?

_Please, Lin. Please hurry. Please tell me you didn't..._

Tenzin heard the sound of the motorcycle. He waited another few minutes. She did not say the top of the clock tower. She did not say it was "their spot" that they were meeting. Tenzin descended down to the foot of the tower and saw the slim, hardened Chief that he had known so well all of his life and felt so close to up until the last few years. Now she felt further from him than anyone. Like she had drifted away onto another planet. Her long, brown hair with noticeable streaks of gray tied up messily. Visual stress.

"Lin..." Tenzin uttered quietly. Her back faced him. She leaned on her bike, breathing slowly. Unable to look at him. Tenzin's heart dropped.

"I didn't want to meet you on the balcony of this place," she said. "It would remind me of old times. Those times are gone. You know that as well as I do."

They were quiet for a few seconds longer.

"What did you do, Lin?"

"I did what I had to, in order to protect my city."

Tenzin knew what that meant. He understood all the signals perfectly. She was unhappy with what had happened, but to her, there was no other way.

Tenzin was speechless. He knew the truth. He found it redundant to ask, but he was so desperate for the answer he wanted. But he only received the one he dreaded.

"You killed him?"

Lin finally looked over at him. There was nothing in her green eyes. They were empty and filled with darkness. A void. Her gray-black hair hung down in front of her face. She looked at him as if nothing mattered to her anymore. Not even Tenzin. Not even herself.


	2. Arrival

-Arrival-

_Straighten your hair. Dust off your jacket. Look nice. You've got a job to do._

Present day. 169 ASC.

The young man with short black hair spoke into the payphone that was inside the small tavern down the block from the police station. Ten Ren, the bartender, cleaned his mugs and attended to the daily alcoholics who came at this time of the afternoon all while simultaneously trying to eavesdrop on the conversation between the young man on the phone in the back. Not having an extremely keen ear for barely audible sounds like most humans, the bartender could only hear one side of the phone conversation.

"Yep…just got here last night. Got a hotel room and the number is…if you need me. Renaissance is the name of it…yessir, I'll get started today, thank you for the extension. Shouldn't be more than a matter of days…" the man lowered his voice to a quiet whisper then hung up the phone. He adjusted the long jacket he was wearing and walked up to the bartender.

"Afternoon," the young man said. He pulled out a small notebook. The bartender noticed the name "Manases" written across the top of it.

"What'll you have, Manases?" Ten Ren asked, throwing a coaster on the table in front of the man whose name was most likely the same name as that written on his notebook. The young man nearly flinched out of surprise from this but then realized his name was in plain sight.

"Oh, no thank you. I am not here to drink. I apologize. I'm working on a project right now for a class I am in. I'm from the Academy, studying overseas here in the city."

"How nice," Ten Ren said, trying to sound polite but not really caring too much since this was not a paying patron. He didn't even know what 'Academy' meant. "What can I do for you, then?"

"Well, we have to write a report. Like a research paper. Like a thesis. For our professor. I wanted to do mine on something which interested me."

"Don't tell me you came all this way to write about me, did ya?" Ten Ren joked, albeit not really in a friendly way.

Manases smiled, "I'm sorry, but I did not. Actually, I've heard that the person I am writing about frequents this tavern on a weekly basis. Can you tell me anything about the Chief? Lin Beifong?" Manases thought to himself while Ten Ren got back to him with an answer. "And you know, why not? I'll take a rum and cola. Not like I'm on the clock or anything."

Ten Ren lightened up and returned with the drink. "Here ya go. Alright, let's see. Ah, Lin. I guess I could call her a regular, not as much as these guys," Ten Ren said, covering one side of his mouth with his hand and pointing to the depressing scene of the old, unemployed alcoholics who probably sat in those chairs each day. "Let's see, she comes in here a few times a week, maybe two or three. Nice woman. Orders a drink or two, smokes a cigarette. Keeps to herself mostly. Says 'hello', whatever she wants to drink, then a 'thank you'. I turn to look and she is usually gone after that without another sound."

Manases scribbled notes in his notebook then took a sip of his drink. "Yeah, I heard she came here and I was hoping to run into her or something. I didn't really want to disturb her while she was working."

"Yeah, you best not. She'd just shove you out of her way. Don't know much about her except she works like a machine. Her job practically rules her life, it's a wonder she takes the little time to sleep and stop by here to see little old me. She wouldn't give you a second of attention."

"I see. So if I were to see her here, which day would be the best for doing that?"

"I can almost guarantee she will be here this Thursday night. Probably nine-thirty. Can't go wrong."

"Excellent," Manases said. He wrote that date in his book and underlined it several times. _Don't forget this!_ Ten Ren resumed cleaning his mugs. Someone down the bar was looking at the bartender for a drink, but Ten Ren was still paying all of his attention on this young man, Manases. He enjoyed speaking with him.

"May I ask you something, kid?"

"Yes."

"Why Lin? What is it about her that interests you so?"

"Well, not much at all is known about her. Seems kind of like she came out of nowhere. I mean, the daughter of the great war-hero, Toph Beifong, just kind of appears out of darkness and is the next chief, and no one really even knows her or anything about her. Not even books have much about her except she joined the force at a really young age. I've always just wondered what she's been through, especially with Toph as a mother. Lin is a bit of a mystery wherever you go, and that interests me. "

"Well, I wish I could be more help. Barely says anything to me or anyone for that matter. Her officers probably don't even know much. All she tells them are orders. It's almost hard to think of her lumped in with the rest of u humans. It feels kinda weird thinking about her doing normal people stuff, like eating, or laughing, you know?"

"I see. So she isn't really close with anyone? Thursday is a few days away. I'd like to speak with more people and learn more before talking to her directly. Do you know any more about her?"

"Just the obvious stuff."

"Like what?"

"She is the chief. Toph's daughter. Metalbender. Uhm…" Ten Ren thought for a second. He looked at Manases through the bottom of a clean mug he had just finished wiping, as if the sight of the young man through the blurry lens sparked a thought. "Oh, she used to be close with someone actually. That airbender."

This caught Manases's attention. He quickly looked up. "Close? Close how? Like a boyfriend? Who is he?"

"The airbender. Name is Tenzin. I know it because it sounds like mine. Yeah, they were close at one point I am pretty sure. Saw them together a few times and people knew. Was no secret or anything."

"Who is this man, again?"

"Tenzin. He is one of the last airbenders. Son of Avatar Aang. Works over at the courthouse on the council. Got himself a family and lives on the island next to the gigantic statue of Aang."

The realization of the man that Ten Ren was referring to hit Manases and he nearly kicked himself. He tried not to sound stupid and ignorant from here. He should have known Tenzin. He knew all about Aang and Katara. How could he have forgotten the name of their youngest child? "Is he is still with Lin?"

"No. They stopped dating a long time ago. Tenzin is married to someone else now. Got a whole family of little airbenders."

Manases finished scribbling things down in his notebook. "Any idea why they stopped dating?"

"Not one."

"Thank you for your time." He closed his notebook, paid for his drink, and left.


	3. Tenzin: Another Year

_Piece_

-Tenzin: Another Year-

Thirty-three years prior.

Another day. Another agent, one from some child protection service asking the same questions. They found her on the street. Called her on the phone. Caught up with her at work. Spending their time tracking her down, asking her the same questions.

Lin was seventeen. She pushed her long, gorgeous black hair out of her eyes. The agents asked:

"Did your mother ever hurt you?"

"No."

"Did your mother ever abuse you?"

"No."

"Has Toph ever touched you inappropriately?"

"Has your mother carried out her anger on you?"

"Did your mother steal you from someone else?"

"Did your mother give you those scars?"

"No. She didn't," Lin said. She glared, instilling fear in these agents. Young men and women who thought they were actually helping by repeatedly asking the same questions. As if getting a "no" was unacceptable, and they would not leave, would not be happy, unless they heard the bad news: a "yes". They would need a new approach that would not involve facing Lin directly. Her short fuse kept them on their toes, but they pressed on, determined.

"They keep bothering you?" Tenzin asked. He broke a piece of bread and buttered it lightly. Lin sat across the table at the nice restaurant in downtown Republic City, pouting.

Another year, that they had been together, or so they just continued to think. Lin didn't know exactly when they started dating. It seemed like it had been this time of the year some time ago when their lifetime friendship turned romantic. It didn't matter to Lin when exactly it was, so Tenzin just picked a day to take her out to a nice dinner.

Lin tried to waive the topic aside and started to look over the menu. She nearly gasped when she read the prices of each dish.

"Tenzin, this food is expensive. Can you afford this?"

"Not usually."

"How…uh?"

"I put in a few extra hours at the courthouse with my dad. Helping out with paperwork and things. Also, you'd be surprised how many people in the city were willing to pay me to do some random chores for them. I only put in a few hours, though…well, around fifty hours to be more exact. Some people were feeling generous and gave me a slight bonus when they heard what I was working for."

"You did all that just to take me to this nice dinner?"

"Of course. You are more than worth it." Tenzin smiled. Lin blushed and looked away, embarrassed. Tenzin chuckled.

"I feel so…lucky." She could not help but smile and reached across the table to hold his hand. It felt strange to her, and that was when she noticed she was wearing gloves. Lin suddenly realized her attire and thought about how stupid she was that she still had her police uniform on out to this nice event.

Tenzin stopped her before she began her apologies. "Lin, I am not upset. I don't mind. I always think you look beautiful. I always have."

The two had been friends since they were children, a friendship that largely resulted due to the fact that both of their parents had also been lifelong friends, facilitating the meeting of the two lovebirds. Lin and Tenzin always had eyes for each other. Tenzin remembers being nine years old and quietly air-gliding through Lin's window to meet her, careful not to touch the ground with too much force such as to awake the storm that was Toph Beifong. He had goofed up before and was subsequently caught by Lin's mother, who no more than told Tenzin to leave, but did so in a voice so intimidating it nearly made the young airbender soil himself. While Toph never meant any harm against the boy, she disapproved of the nocturnal meetings, much to Lin's dismay. It was something her mother would never let slip by, the meetings bothered her beyond compromise, and Lin knew it was useless to try and argue with the woman. Toph's scowl along with her manner of speaking with such force worked well enough to keep Tenzin from venturing over to Lin's room every night after a while, so the two needed a new place to meet. A place they would both know. Would both depend on always being safe for all time.

It was this place toward which the young, teenage couple walked that night, years later, after their something-year anniversary dinner. Tenzin dressed up. Lin regretfully in uniform. The old meeting place had a sentimental value to them now in their late teenage years, and it was for the purpose of nostalgia and romance as opposed to their old reasons of secrecy and adventure that they continued to meet there. They were reminded of how young they were when they first started using this place as their rendezvous point, and now as young adults, they were already out in the world, working, growing up. Changing, for better and for worse.

A clock tower. One giant, eternally ticking clock for the whole city to see as they went about their lives. Reminding them of their duties and schedules. Indicating another hour of their lives had ticked by, instilling either excitement or anxiety into all those that heard it.

The clock tower chimed. Nine O'clock. Lin was startled by the sound, sitting against the wall on the rooftop ledge below the clock, high up on the tower, right next to the bells emitting the sound. The building was easy now for the two to infiltrate and reach the rooftops. Tenzin's air gliding and Lin's metal cables, it was a piece of cake.

"Guh, I always forget that it chimes like that. Gets me every time. Maybe because we usually came here after midnight when it stopped making noise, all those years ago," Lin said, looking up at the clock.

"Or maybe you just forget it was going to happen because you lose track of time when you are around me...since I am so captivating," Tenzin said, jokingly. Lin lightly punched him on the arm. Affectionately. They looked over the city, leaning on the ledge. All over the ledges and pillars of the rooftops were the childish drawings etched in the stone, the more ornate ones done by Lin as a young girl, and the rough scratches by Tenzin, who found it hard to work with the material, being unable to bend it unlike Lin. Depictions by the two kids of the two kids, a boy and girl, holding hands, smiling, laughing, earthbending and airbending together. Kissing.

"I can't believe these are still here," Lin said, rubbing her hands over the drawings.

"They'll probably always be," Tenzin replied.

"That's nice to know. As things change, it's comforting to see these and be filled with those happy memories. Of what we were like back then."

Tenzin laughed to himself. "I remember your mother trying to find me one night after I snuck in. She stood right in front of me, shouting, but couldn't see me because I was just barely gliding off the ground. Even though I knew I was safe, the sound of her voice speaking out to me, and her just standing there looking at me was probably the scariest thing I can ever imagine. I bet she heard my heart beat. She could always hear yours. I swear, my parents were forever upset that they could never frighten me like she did," he joked.

Lin giggled at this. One of the drawings was of her smiling as she lifted a big rock. "The day I learned to earthbend. That was such a long time ago, I can't even really remember. I haven't stopped to think of how things have changed so quickly since then. She seemed so proud that day," Lin sighed, reminiscing.

"So, how is the old warden these days?" Tenzin asked, referring to Lin's mother.

"Fine. Obsessed with work, and herself, as usual. I can kind of see what she means when she says it becomes a part of her life, now that I've been in the force."

"Do you like it? The work? The responsibility?"

"I like the idea of people being safe and not afraid to go outside. I think this is what I was supposed to be doing here."

The answer was strange to Tenzin. He did not feel it was very close to a "yes". At least not to him. He looked over at her face, the scars across her cheek. Two nearly parallel lines which at one time were so deep into her face that the mark would be left on it forever.

"It's a little unbelievable to me at times, though," she said.

"What is?"

"People. The things they will do. The horrible things. It was not long before I had my first case of murder. Seeing the whole concept of life and death like that was unsettling. One day, the man was alive. He was a father, a hard-working business man, he had parents that loved him. A life that was fulfilling and had so much meaning and depth. The next day, he is dead, and it's all gone, just memories and paper work. That life is obliterated. That piece of so many other people's lives is just removed at the hands of the one person who thought that man needed to die. It gets you thinking about that person who felt the need to kill someone else. You wonder...who does that person think he is? To feel justified in taking that life?"

"Some people just have a very distorted sense of morality. But I don't think anyone can just kill like that and not feel even the smallest amount of guilt," Tenzin said, trying to reassure Lin in the goodness within all humans.

"I've been doing this a year now, and I am starting to believe the opposite. I'm starting to believe that some people have released themselves from any feeling at all. They just do, without thinking, without emotion. They just kill for no other reason than that they just do. And they feel nothing." Lin looked at the etching of her and Tenzin holding hands. Connected, like all humans are. Holding hands, her inclusion in the life of someone else. A sense of belonging burned within her, that she shared her life with this man beside her, that his happiness as well as his pain was hers for all time. Complementing this joy within her was a confusion that there were those who disconnected themselves completely from the notion of a human relationship and a meaningful life, unable to experience this one if not the most important component of living. They just coursed alongside humanity, parallel to it, occasionally interacting with it but never immersing themselves with it. No longer even a human, just a force of nature.

Tenzin looked over to Lin, who had become lost in her thoughts. Pensive. Tenzin started to think as well. Lin had changed since joining the force. The kind of thoughts she was having and expressing to him had only been conceived over the last year. A year where Lin had seen death and murder and the malice that humans can resort to. A year of being scarred by witnessing the worst of mankind.

"Lin. You know you can tell me anything, right? You know I am always here for you?"

"Yes."

They were both silent for a few seconds, then Lin spoke again.

"This is about my scars?"

"I know you've said it was not your mother, and I believe you. I know you said it was just an accident, but I just feel as though the scars bother you more than they should be. I feel they have left more of a mark on you than just these two streaks across your face."

Lin sighed. She had spent the last year fending off agents who seemed to be so set on slamming Toph with child abuse charges. Who wanted so badly to hear bad news from Lin that she was a victim of physical beatings from her mother who 'could not control her temper'. Her mother who 'was so stressed over her job and took it out on her daughter'. Creating their own versions of the chief, trying to get Lin to agree with those lies, just so they could break down the image of the Great Toph Beifong that all citizens came to hold as true, but the actual truth rested only with Lin. It was as if these people already had the headlines written in the papers and all they needed was Lin's correct answer so they could run the issues and feel "complete" in their line of work.

Maybe it'd be nice to tell someone what had actually happened. Someone who was not jumping the gun and making predetermined accusations. Someone who would actually listen, even if it was not the truth they wanted to hear. Tenzin knew she was affected by the scars too much for them to be of no importance beyond a mere wound. He cared, and she knew he cared. She loved that he cared.

"One of my first missions on the police force last year. After graduating the academy extremely fast, you can bet I was feeling sure of myself. A break-in, if I remember correctly, on the east side of town somewhere. Suspicions of terrorist activity was what we thought. Was what _I _thought. Well, because I was _so_ sure of myself, I allowed myself to be caught _so_ off-guard. Bastard came out of nowhere and did this to my face with some kind of weapon. A long blade of his. Two-pronged. It felt like he was laughing at me. At my zeal. Such a deep cut. Hurt more than anything I can remember. Just imagine being stabbed in the _face_. It was completely my fault. I was over-confident, and I let my pride bring down my strategy. I failed, Tenzin. I'll never forget that I failed that day, and these scars were the consequence. The result of my zeal. These scars remind me of my responsibility, that this job is serious and I need to take it seriously. I feel like this happens to most cops at some point, it just happened to me earlier. It is strange to me that everyone is making a big deal out of them, though. What do they want?"

Tenzin reached and grabbed Lin's hand. She looked to him and smiled. Almost anything Tenzin did made her smile. He was the best thing she had in her life. It made him happy seeing her face, but then he remembered why he had asked her about her scars.

"I am not sure why those people have been calling and asking you about the scars. Trying to pry into your private life. People have their reasons, some of them are genuine, others just want a story and will get you to say something for that story. Twist your words. Uncover information that is none of their business for a mere headline."

"It's my problem, not theirs."

"Well, whatever the reason…I wanted to ask you for a different one."

"What is it, Tenzin?"

"Maybe you don't remember. Maybe you choose not to, or did not think it was a big deal. But the day you received those scars, when I came to see you to make sure you were alright, I happened to see your mother. Of course, you merely toughened up and acted like the ordeal did not affect you, that's just who you are, but I won't forget the look on your mother's face. Just thinking about it…I never even once considered the absurd thought that she was responsible. She just looked terrified. I had never seen her like that before."

Lin did not respond immediately. She looked over the balcony, looked over the city. The lights shined so bright and blurred together that it was confusing to tell which building had which lights. They shined green and blue and yellow and white. She heard sirens in the distance. The sound pinched her curiosity, but she let it go, trusting that her mother would be able to handle it. Whatever it was. Whatever evil lurked underneath the bright lights before her, her mother would snuff it out. Obliterate the evil. She had to. She was the chief.

She was her mother. Toph, who to many, including Lin at the time, represented all that was powerful and good.


	4. Metal Hollow

**/*Note: I admit that this world I am writing this LoK fic in is a little more advanced in terms of technology than it is in the actual show by season 1. a little bit more industrialization. Nothing too drastic. But I am aware of this. Thanks for reading.*/**

-Metal Hollow-

"Interesting," the young man said. He scribbled notes down in his notebook. The notes began underneath the header with his name, "Manases", and the current date which was about thiry-three years after Tenzin learned the truth behind Lin's scars. Tenzin, now in his fifties, watched as the young man wrote down the pieces of the story Tenzin had just recounted about his anniversary date with his old girlfriend. About the conversation he had with Lin on the clock tower all those years ago. "Thirty-three years since then?"

"That is about right, I think. Back then I probably would not be giving that information out so easily like this, but I feel enough time has passed that it shouldn't matter."

Manases continued to write things down in his book. He showed up on Air Temple Island not long ago asking to speak with Tenzin, the patriarch of the airbending family, but more importantly to the journalist, the only person still alive who really knows Lin Beifong best. Actually, he was the only one who knew her at all. Next to her mother and a handful of others who had all passed away by this point, no one other than Tenzin had ever been close to Lin.

"The story? It is a project of mine for a professor where I am from. I needed to research someone and the Beifong line starting from Toph has been a hot topic amongt several communities. A story on Lin would be popular," Manases had said upon greeting Tenzin and explaining his trip to the city.

"Well then, if it is just a project for a grade, wouldn't it make the most sense to talk to her? She is in the city and she is the primary source," Tenzin asked.

"I wanted to at least have some background information before I went and spoke with Lin. I thought it might just be best to start with some acquaintances and, well, you seem to be the only one who knows her who isn't a police officer," Manases replied. Additionally, to assure Tenzin of his peaceful motives, he mentioned that he was a little scared of meeting with Lin, and since Tenzin was all about peace and freedom, Manases figured he would be a more relaxing person to talk to first. He was right. Tenzin welcomed him inside, introduced him to his wife and three children, and even gave him something to eat.

"I can't thank you enough for your hospitality, sir."

"It is no problem. So please, what can I do for you?"

"You were once close to Chief Beifong?"

"I was. A long time ago. We've grown apart."

"I was wondering if you wouldn't mind just telling me a few things about her, starting with her scars?"

"What about them?"

"How did she obtain them?"

As Tenzin started to explain, his mind drifted back in time to that night thirty-some years ago on the clock tower when he asked her and got his first explanation of the scars' origins. A result of an overzealous woman who thought she knew everything, but realized in a harsh way that she was not some kind of exception. A rude awakening she would forever try and undo.

"Interesting…thiry-three years…," Manases said. "Have you seen her since?"

"Occasionally. Lin has distanced herself from the rest of the world. She focuses primarily on her job, and dedicates little to her personal life and relationships. Almost nothing."

"So you two went your separate ways, and at some point in time you found the woman who is now your wife. What event caused you two to break up?"

"I'm sorry, friend, but I thought the topic was the origins of Lin's scars, which I have explained in its entirety. What does my once romantic relationship with Lin have to do with this?"

"Forgive me," Manases said, not wanting to upset Tenzin, who had been so kind, "I just…well, I am trying to get a good picture of Lin's life. Every detail is important, and frankly I think everything is connected. Every interaction she had with you, her only friend it seems, is valuable to this story of mine. And I honestly believe it all has to do with her scars as well."

Tenzin was skeptical. "Why do you think that?"

"Other reporters have tried to piece together Lin's life. Based on the few reports I've read about her, they have a few bits of her life, here and there, describing her mother, her scars, her life with you… the identity of her father. These reports were not really well-known, please don't think there are broadcasts of your life for the whole world to see. But they were so scattered. Weak theories. Nothing really stood out or seemed interesting. Useless information that everyone would already know and would never make a good story for me. I once thought that alone the pieces of her life were just isolated events, but then I began wondering if they were actually connected. As if it was not the facts of her life people did not know, it was just that they weren't asking the right questions. It is funny how that is usually the more difficult problem, finding the questions, as opposed to answering them. I am hoping I can make a breakthrough."

"Well I am hoping that you keep in mind Lin's interests while you undertake this mission of yours. She may not want the public…"

"Tenzin, I can assure you no one but a few others and I will know about this. It is just for a few professors, but I think this story deserves to be written. To go out. I think there is a lot to be learned about the Beifongs, and there is little time. The Beifongs are becoming extinct. I want to make sure Lin isn't forgotten before she goes."

"Well, I can assure _you _that Lin will be remembered for a long time, and it won't be because of her past."

"Is there anything else you can tell me about how she got her scars?"

"I told you exactly what she had told me. That is all I have."

Manases wrote some things in his notebook, underlining several words in his notes that Tenzin could not see. "Deviating from the topic of her scars, then, can you tell me a little about the event which caused your breakup?" he asked.

"There was no single event. There were a number of things she did, and I did, or didn't do. None of them are really worth explaining," Tenzin said. He did not want to talk about his breakup with Lin. It was a long, drawn-out process that had drained him of his energy and he was not about to sit there and recount the ordeal. "It's really no business of yours so I am not going to go into detail about them because they have nothing to do with the kind of information you are looking for. To keep it short, Lin distanced herself, like I said. She changed, cared less about relationships, turned away from the kind of future that I was moving toward. A family. To settle down. Raise children. I knew Lin no longer thought about any of that. She and I did not see things the same way anymore. It was sad, I will admit. She had broken away from the world. I tried for a while to stay with her. To be there for her while she fell farther away from this world. I thought I had to…but soon I found someone new. So it goes. A relationship ends, a new one begins. I fell in love again, and here I am. Happy. The life I wanted. I know Lin would not want it, but I have pity for her. She is not happy. Maybe because of me, that I left her, and she could tell that we were drifting apart but could not and did not stop it. Sometime after her mother died, she told me she really did not have anything left but her duty to the city. She knew she had lost me, but she also knew she had to accept it. I don't know if she has yet, but I do know she is doing what she thinks is right. Even if I can tell she is unhappy, she has chosen, justified, and accepted her path."

"Which path?"

"The lonely one. The path of this city's protector. The one who will take the burden and put it on her shoulders so her citizens will not have to live in fear. Fear of terror and death. No matter what it does to her, she will lift that kind of fear from these people, and eliminate it."

"So Lin was changed by her job? As the chief?"

"She very much was. Just like her mother. To explain it all... well, it is not my place to do so. I am just confused by the whole matter. Her side of the story resides with her, but in my perspective, Lin let her job get in the way of her morality, and I could not be there for her anymore. She refused to let me. Anyway, I am afraid I will have to ask you to leave. I have a meeting shortly with some members from the Order of the White Lotus. My mother informs me that the Avatar in the South Pole has been excelling in her training but still lacks the ability to airbend. It is difficult when there is only one person in the whole world who can teach her and he is trying to raise a family while keeping the crime rates in Republic City to a minimum. The Order are probably angry, though. Just like they always are."

Manases chuckled. The way Tenzin talked was humorous to him, even if he wasn't even joking.

"Certainly. I may need to have a few more words with you in the future if that is a possibility? Maybe touch more on the break-up."

"My friend, If I have time, I would not mind at all speaking to you about anything you want but when it comes to that, I have told you all that I am really at liberty to say. Beyond that is Lin's business, and that is something that I very much respect."

"I see. May I ask one more question?" Manases said, trying to quickly get some last-minute but still pertinent information out of Tenzin while he had him. "Since you knew Lin as a child, do you know anything about her father?"

Tenzin pondered the question for a moment. "Oh, it was so long ago. I don't Lin had an actual father. Sure, someone was responsible for her birth, I guess…The only thing I can remember is Sokka."

"Sokka? Your uncle?"

"Yes. He helped Toph take care of Lin and me on occasion. He was usually there for Toph when she needed someone. I just remember Toph always being angry when I had snuck over, I started wondering if it was because Lin was her and Sokka's daughter, and that would be dating my cousin. But, I don't think Toph and Sokka were ever romantically involved. The man sure was an invaluable help to Toph in raising Lin, though. It was only for a short time. I was really young, but he would be around to help her all the time with whatever she needed, my father told me. Toph raised Lin alone the rest of her life. In a small house just on the outskirts of the city, across the water where there used to be a lot of land. Now it's dominated by factories."

"Can I get the address of this house?" Manases asked, the mention of a house being news to him. Suspicious that it could hide some sort of secrets. Tenzin gave him the address, saying the house was soon to be condemned and had been torched recently, so nothing was really there anymore.

Manases hopes took a small stab at that but decided to head over there anyway. He closed his notebook and stood. "Thank you, Tenzin. I will be on my way, now."

* * *

The industrial district felt like a new world. Republic City was so far away, even though it was just across the water on the other side of Air Temple Island. Manases was in a new land now, a silent one. Fading streetlights struggling to fend off the creeping darkness. However, the headlights of the young man's satomobile seemed to light up the area more than any of these old streetlights slowly dying off. Dusk had yet to come, but the sky was black with the ash from the factory smokestacks.

The cellar of Republic City. Factories towered over the streets. Ominous, the windows arranged on these buildings to appear like gigantic faces watching all the humans passing through. Watching their every move while the machines and furnaces worked within them. The breath from their fiery interiors emitted as smoke. Burning coal. Burning gasoline. Burning trash. Maybe even burning bodies. Who knows? Even with all the sounds of machines and motors and engines and perpetual motion, Manases felt completely alone in this place when he stepped out of his car to walk to the payphone. Sound of cold metal echoed all across the streets. The air was nothing but by-products of manufacturing. Parked cars left on the streets, abandoned here because no one would ever find them or look here. No one cared. Papers blew through the wind. The factory windows were all shattered, lights burnt out as if not a single person had been here to attend to them in years, but they still operated, created products to be shipped out to somewhere. Self-operating establishments constantly creating. Manases truly felt watched by the factories. The processes occurring within them, the machines continuously running sounded like groans of anger because he was there. A human in the land of emotionless metal.

Manases had come here for a reason. He walked up to the payphone and dialed.

"It's me…yeah I spoke with him…no I don't plan on going to her until I have enough info so it doesn't seem like I am uhm…yeah, doing this. Anyway he told me…well, no I don't have the whole story yet, just some facts…yes, they sound like what we already have…okay, I understand, I'll let you know when I have new facts…right now? I'm in the industrial district. Apparently Lin's old house is somewhere around here, still standing. House she was born in. Surrounding area used to be nothing but dirt and grass but over the last thirty years things have taken…okay, sure thing. When I have more I'll give you a call. This is going to be big this time, I can tell. It'll be everywhere."

Manases hung the phone up and walked down the street, constant paranoia overtaking him. Truly feeling like he was not alone, even though he knew he was. It felt strange, being in such a huge area, and knowing he was alone for at least a mile. What were all these machines even doing? What were they making? Manases did not know, but he knew that the machines didn't know either, they were not aware, they just made and built and assembled. Someone had to come here at least once in a while to maintain them and export the goods. But they were just visitors. The machines, they were the true residents in this part of town.

He finally came to the house with the address Tenzin had given him. A small house, one-story. A large factory dwarfed the house in the backyard, loud, unsettling grinding noises coming from it. Manases analyzed the house. Blackened wood as it had at one time been set on fire from the inside. Windows either boarded up or just open holes. Half of the front porch in pieces, the door barely accessible. He noticed a few lights that were on which added to his discomfort.

A loud slam echoed off the factories. A door closing nearby. Manases instinctively reached inside his coat pocket, feeling the handle of his small weapon. He wondered now if Tenzin had seen the the weapon. He hoped not. A light turned on in the back of the house. A shadow was cast across the yard. Someone had exited the house. He had a long ponytail and wore a white shirt underneath a blue blazer that looked as if it had not been washed in weeks. He was smoking a cigarette and picking up a few pieces of trash from the lawn.

Manases approached. "Excuse me?"

The man, startled, dropped the trash bag he was holding and looked over at Manases, "Who the hell are you? What do you want?"

"Is this your place?"

The man looked from Manases to the house then back, nervously. "You could say that. Can I help you with something?" He said quickly, in a rather unfriendly tone.

"I apologize. I am working on a project and I was referred to this house. I was not aware that it was inhabited. The name is Manases. An yours?" He put his hand out to shake.

"You a cop or something? Because if you are cop I have a good explanation…"

"I am not a cop. Explanation for what?"

"Don't worry about it. The name is O-Ren."

"How did you come to live here?"

"Just hit a bit of a rough patch in life. As it goes. Just needed a place to rest for a while and I've been told that this was safe for me to do I get my own place. Really was nice of her."

"Nice of who? If you don't mind?"

"What does it matter to you?"

"I am just trying to learn a little bit more about the previous residents. Do you know anything about the person who was staying here before you?"

O-Ren looked at the house, pondering what Manases said. "Look, I don't want to get into any trouble. I was told by the chief that I could stay here for a little while. Can't be too much longer before one of these companies decides to demolish the place and build on it. I think she said it was good for another few years or something."

"This area apparently used to be a lot of land."

"Not anymore. Big business made sure of that. They quickly capitalized on this land. I can't remember a time when this area wasn't just smog and machines. Cold, heartless slaves focusing on nothing but their job without concern for anything else..."

O-Ren had gone off on a tangent about the factories. Lost in his own thoughts that he started speaking out loud. Manases figured the guy must have been baked or something. He smelled something from the house. O-Ren was still coherent enough to speak with though as long as Mansases kept him on topic.

"Do you know what happened to this place?"

"It was, uh, set on fire some time ago. Not sure when, but the inside is torched. Can still smell the burning."

"Do you know why?"

"Nope. Some people thought the Chief did it to hide something. That was dropped quickly. No one really cared about it after a while. The incident was just forgotten."

"Anything preserved?"

"Have a look around if you want. Not much in there and I am not hiding anything."

Manases took the offer and walked inside. The smell was much stronger inside. The guy had definitely been smoking something other than a cigarette earlier. Manases wondered if Lin would have even been mad about that. Why had she let him live here? Did that have anything to do with this story? How did he know her? He walked through the house. Newspapers torn apart littered the floors. Burnt wood. Furniture looking as if it had come from a dumpster. All of the dishes in the sink covered with dirt and mold. Unused for months.

"You don't take care of this place very well."

"It's going down soon. I think. If you are looking for anything that was already here, it would be in the closet on your left. Don't go through _my _stuff or in the basement. There isn't anything there."

The man seemed suspicious. Manases, however, felt that he should respect the squatter. He walked down a hallway, his footsteps echoing. It felt like the house was hollow and help up by cardboard with paper-thin floors and walls. Like it could fall at any minute. The walls looked as if they had been torn apart then hastily and sloppily boarded back up with decaying plywood. The hallway was very strange. There was a bathroom but then the hallway just ended at a wall. No bedroom on this side of the house. The walls ripped apart. Manases lightly knocked on the wood nailed to the walls, his knuckles sinking in to the damp, weakening wood. He cringed and stopped, walking toward the closet that O-Ren referred to. He figured Lin might have been trying to do a nice thing by letting this man squat here.

"Are these your renovations?" Manases asked, referring to the layers of plywood shielding on the walls.

"House is full of secrets, man. Secret passages. Secret doorways. Secret…tunnels," O-Ren started to laugh and hum a song to himself.

Manases smelled the stink. O-Ren was smoking up again. Baking. Too far-gone to be of any use. Dozing off. The young reporter reached the closet and started searching. He pulled out and discarded several books that did not look like they had ever been opened. Toph probably did not have much use for written text.

Piles of ash filled most of the empty space in the closet. He searched through it and found a crumpled up piece of paper with nothing but a title.

_Thesis on Mankind_

_Devas Asura_

"Excuse me? Do you know anything about this?" Manases asked O-Ren. He walked over and

looked over the title and the name, his eyes blood-shot.

"Looks like a name"

"Why would this be here?"

"No idea. There is a name there, though."

"Yeah, I can see that." Manases looked at the name. This slip of paper was in this household for a reason. Maybe it was left here, still intact, on purpose, for someone like him to find. If Toph had lived here, maybe the name would be in a file somewhere in the police station.

He continued to search through the closet. O-Ren watched over his shoulder while eating a bowl of cereal, then eventually walked away to sit on the couch, no longer able to see whatever Manses would find. Through the piles of ash and ripped up paper, Manases reached the depths of the closet. He pulled out a shiny object, damaged by fire and time.

"It's a badge," Manases said, quietly, to himself. O-Ren did not overhear. "A police badge. Is this _her_ police badge?" He wondered why Toph herself did not have it. Was this an extra? Whatever the case, it looked and felt authentic. Believable. The bade with the iconic symbol of the police department. Known not only in Republic City, but this was the symbol for Toph's metalbenders stationed in other precincts as well. It could be a badge from any of them. Manases looked over to O-Ren. He was not paying attention. The badge could come handy. The kind of information Manases was searching for usually was not made available to the public. He knew cops generally kept things from the public to keep the peace. He had dealt with it before. He wondered what kind of stories lied unknown to the public behind the walls of that police station. Beh99ind the walls of Lin Beifong.

"Thank you for letting me look around, O-Ren."

"Don't mind. I've known people like you. Smart people. I won't get in your way, just don't do anything stupid. Like, really stupid, you know. If you mess up, you didn't know me. I can make your life hell if you say anything about me, got it? You got it. I think you do," O-Ren started to pass out.

"Sure thing."


	5. Jin: The Case of the Mayfield Killer

_Piece_

-Jin: The Case of the Mayfield Killer-

Fifty-four years prior.

Most people remembered five.

Five members. Five memorials. Five legends.

Zuko. Toph. Sokka. Katara. Aang.

The members of the original Team Avatar had been looked to as models of absolute goodness

since the end of the Great War. These five were constantly used as examples in primary schools as well as higher educational institutions for kindness, nonviolence against oppression, respect, forgiveness, intelligence, determination in the face of adversity and limitations, responsibility, and courage. All of these being some of the traits possessed by the original Team that had saved the world from a future under the tyrannical, imperialistic rule of the old Fire Nation, as opposed from the peaceful, hard-working new Fire Nation.

It would be solely these traits that would be used to describe these war heroes as time moved on. As time established the original Team Avatar as the embodiments of all that was good. Nobody could possibly imagine any of them having their share of faults and temptations. The world was safe under their watchful eyes. They knew what was right, and their actions and teachings cruised by without question. Statues rose of these individuals, engravings, murals, as the hands of these original five helped found countless institutions and services that were relied on heavily in the later years. Zuko's statue stood before the Central City Station. A mural of Katara could be seen on the Republic City Hospital. Sokka's boomerang was engraved on the judge desk in the city courthouse. Aang's statue marked the famous Air Temple Island. And last but certainly not least, the statue of Toph Beifong, representing the Republic City Police Department as its founder.

Scaffolding was still set up in front of the station as builders put the finishing touches on the rather large statue of Toph. They hurried to finish but with care as to not aggravate the easily-angered, egotistical woman this statue was to depict. She had been part of the design process the whole way, but now she was preoccupied with something else for once. The young chief was standing over her desk, listening to one of her officers reread the news story chronicling her latest drug bust which landed several of the more prominent Triple Threats behind bars, since she couldn't read it herself.

"Finally, got those scumbags in prison where they belong," the young Toph Beifong cheered. Not only had her strategic drug bust proven those at the top of the drug cartel guilty of smuggling and selling, but they were also found responsible for an arms black market as well as several murders, a couple of those being cops that had been killed. Her name was chanted by civilians as yet another threat was removed from the streets.

"Working my hardest to make this city a better and safer place to live," Toph told the press. She tried to sound humble, but being Toph, that was difficult. "I strive to be the best, or rather, continue being the best." She laughed quietly, but restrained from expressing her ego too much to the camera. However, she did not hesitate to ask her officers to read her the story of her drug bust three or four more times.

Toph sat at her desk, listening to the words describing her brilliance and bravery. In her hands was the hilt of the sword she had crafted herself, a product of her own two hands. A cavalry sabre. A small, flying boar engraved on the blade itself. Few had ever seen her actually use it. It was more of an ornament, but in battle, it proved to be much more useful than for mere showcasing. It had the power to cut through the strongest materials, easily slicing through steel like it was butter.

"Space rock," she had once told the press. "A few years ago when I was in the Fire Nation, a meteor had crashed nearby and I took a sample of the rock and refined it to make this sword. Inspired by a friend of mine many years ago who did the same thing. This baby can cut through anything." Toph spun the sword and slid it into the sheath. "Not for sale. Find your own space rock."

This was how Toph was usually presented to people via the press. A tough woman, a strong independent one. One who did her work extremely well and deserved the right to expand her ego as much as she did. The woman Republic City could always turn to when danger was afoot, when darkness seemed to be creeping through the streets, Toph would simply meet it face to face and eradicate it.

"What is the picture?" she asked after her latest drug bust.

"Just you standing in front of the warehouse. Looking pissed," said Jin, the officer reading to her.

"Looking tough, but whatever, okay, cool. I like it"

Jin was hardly annoyed by this. Toph used to get more cocky after these things, but she has been taking it down a little over the years. Learning to control her pride. Additionally, the officer was not annoyed because Toph had amazed the entire force in taking down this last meeting between the highest ranking gang members. Infiltrating the warehouse in which they had gathered without fear or hesitation and easily catching the criminals while they were in the act of trading and abusively interrogating members of their rival gang. She barely needed help. Swiftly and efficiently taking down any of the gang members which posed a threat to her. This was one of several successful police investigations and raids that she was involved in and ended successfully. In fact, just about every case she was on was closed swiftly and pleasantly because of her. Terrorists, drug dealers, psychopaths, serial killers, scandalous politicians, rapists…She put many people in jails and no doubt made the city a much safer place to live. Crime rates dropped dramatically since her rise to the position of chief. Criminals were afraid of her, and she loved it.

Toph grew older loving her reputation more and more, and trying harder to restrain her gigantic ego. However, others learned of her greatness, and her work gained recognition beyond the city. It was in the middle of hearing her story reread to her for the third time that she received an important call from a sheriff in a small desert town west of Si Wong, south of Republic City. Usually these calls went unanswered by Toph because she knew that most of the time it was an easy case that those stationed in that area were a little too lazy to solve for themselves. She had bigger cases to deal with in Republic City, but this call proved to be of peculiar interest to her. Mainly because of the last call she ignored, one from another sheriff in a different but also small country town. A sheriff who spoke of an eerily similar case of murders. The severity of the issue, and the fact that although the forces had tried but failed to catch the killer, enticed Toph to accept the case.

One day later, Toph and Jin had arrived in the small town of Mayfield. Hardly even a town, or a field. Two blocks of shops and restaurants, scattered homes and trailer parks and motels, an infinitely long and mostly empty road that they had taken into the town which stretched from the town outward to other small desert towns, and dirt. Lots of dirt. Not even the small blade of grass struggling to survive. Tumbleweeds blew through the town and occasionally into stores, other times they were crushed by the wheelbarrows filled with random supplies that everyone seemed to be pushing around. No city folks around these parts, probably people who had never even heard or seen a city. Crows perched on poles all around the town, chirping, reminding the citizens that there was a grim reaper passing through their town, sweeping up lives.

Toph's feet touched the ground, and she felt isolated from the bustling craze of the city. Her feet felt such little activity for miles and miles.

She loved it.

"Ah, it feels like home again."

The sheriff sat inside the only coffee shop in the town. He put his newspaper down when Toph and Jin walked in.

"I'm glad you didn't bring the whole force with you," the sheriff said, voicing a very southern accent. Toph and Jin took a seat.

"Not necessary. I didn't want to cause a storm in the city. Best keep these things on the quiet side for now."

"I can assure you this ain't no joke we been up against."

"Tell me what has been happening here."

"Not just here. It's happened in about four or five other towns around the desert just like this one. Guy just rotates through them."

The sheriff began to explain the situation. A serial killer had been taking victims throughout many desert as well as mountain towns. A common threshold on the population of these towns was noticeable. The man wasn't going for big cities, however, he was going for landowners. Many members of the highest societal classes owned houses in these areas. Big houses. Homes away from home houses, because they could. Because the land was cheap, and they had enough money to make a cheap place into a nice, coveted place. Which they did.

"So he is targeting the rich?"

"Not exactly."

The rich comprised a few of the targets. Other targets appeared to be rich in other things besides money.

"We got hospital volunteers. Charity workers. Criminals. Even strong benders. Your exceptionally decent folks, as well as your worst ones. All have been targets. It is a mystery."

They each had their surplus of something, a quality or material possession. Money. Bending. Decency. Hatred. They each had something, and more of it than others. And they lived in places like this. That was nearly the extent of what had been known...

"Here is where the story gets interesting," the sheriff said, back at the town's precinct. He threw a few pictures on the table. Jin picked them up as the sheriff described the murders.

"So we got over a dozen deaths on file from about four cities. Last one was at the motel just before you get into town."

The murders were performed in a variety of ways. Shot in the head, beaten, strangled, drowned, and stabbed.

"And the marks?" Toph asked. She was referring to a mark which had been found on one of the victims, and then on several others. Three parallel cuts, deep into the skin, deep enough to leave a scar. Some on the back and other on the chest so that they could not be seen when wearing normal clothing. The only victims that were stabbed to death were the ones who had this wound on them.

"The stabbing victims. Only ones that have the mark. The others, the ones shot and beaten up, can't find the mark on them, and trust me, it is difficult to mistake most wounds with this one. The ones without marks, they are killed one-by-one, then eventually, after a spree of killing and destruction, we find the corpse of the one with the mark, stabbed to death, and the killings take a break. Then they start again and stop when another corpse with the mark turns up."

Toph stood in the autopsy room over the latest victim. She felt the mark for herself on the corpse of the victim. Just from touching it, she understood what it looked like. Every detail of it, knowing she would recognize it if she felt it on another victim. While standing in the empty motel room, she could feel a presence of someone else. Someone that was already in the room when she walked in, or had just left right before she got there. It was fuzzy, but she was almost positive an unwanted presence was there with her. So close she could almost feel it.

Back in the autopsy room, Toph felt the mark. The three cuts on the man's back. Then she felt the stab wound.

"The mark is old. Older than the stab wound. I can feel it. He received the mark probably a week or two ago. The stab wound is only a day old at the most," she said. Jin and the sheriff were accompanying her.

"So you are telling me this man has been walking around with this mark on his back?" the sheriff asked.

"I'm guessing you haven't spoken with any of these men while they were, uhm, branded by this mark? After they received it, and before they were killed?"

"We have not been able to find any before they are dead. They do not inform us that they have been marked."

"They are probably told not to by whoever is in charge," Toph said. The plan was to find a victim. A victim of the mark, but obviously not a dead one. Intercept the victim before his or her window closes, tap the phones, record any activity. "I want to learn more about those that were killed by the stabbings, and those that were killed in the other ways. I believe the two are related, but still separated. The random killings have their purpose and are related, but not in the same way that the stabbings are."

The investigation was under way. Within a few days, new findings were coming in. Backgrounds of the victims. Other events were found to be related as well. The leveling of several buildings, for example, was also connected to the case. Remains of bombs found in buildings frequented by those who were branded and stabbed to death.

"What kind of buildings, Jin?"

"Libraries. Schools. Hospitals. Some of the bombs were found, others were not," Jin told Toph. She grunted. "Chief, some of the people witnessed the victims themselves entering these buildings. One citizen even reported to us that the woman who was shot in her bedroom was once married to one of the stabbed victims, the man who was found stabbed to death in the trailor park, and additionally, he was the last person with her before she was found dead. That much is known…"

The story began to line up. The victims of the shootings and bombings, the unbranded victims, were in some way, either loosely or closely, related to the victim of the stabbed victim. It was the same case with the buildings that had been bombed. They were all in some way connected to the victim of the stabbings. To the branded victim. And in the window of time between the victim receiving the brand and the victim being murdered, the span of time when the victim had to have had the mark, a few people of each town had reported suspicious behavior. Reported that the victim was acting unusual, keeping to himself, unstable at work, going off alone more often. Gun salesmen recalling the victim buying a firearm. One employee of a chemical plant, a man who worked closely with one of the stabbing victims, reported strange activity from the victim, indicating that he was stealing supplies from work. Chemicals that would be necessary to make lethal things, explosives being one of those things.

"We got one!" the sheriff said. It had been days of intense investigation. Republic City asked where their fearless chief had been. Toph kept this excursion of hers under the covers. Nobody outside of the small task force of officers that she was working with knew about the case, and it wasn't even that many that knew about this serial murderer being on the loose. Republic City was completely unaware.

_Better they don't know. Better we don't disrupt what little peace we have until this is over._

Toph knew. She knew this investigation would be over shortly. She knew because she was the best, and it was only going to be a few more days before this man was done with.

Her day had come.

"We got one. A victim of the brand. Three strikes. Right down his back. In custody right now. Let's set this up, people!"

The plan was to wire the victim. Make sure he was safe, but find out what the mark meant. What would happen between now and when the victim was stabbed to death.

"He's a banker. Rich guy," the sheriff said. "Sitting right out there."

It was the same mark. Toph made sure of that. Before she knew it, recording devices were up and running in the man's bedroom and a constant watch was initiated.

"I don't remember getting it," the victim said. "I woke up with an awful pain and I just had it. And then…"

The man explained the phone call. A deep voice speaking to him over the line explaining the mark. Explaining what would have to happen next.

"He called himself Indra. He said he was my ruler, now."

"Why didn't you call the police immediately?" the sheriff asked.

"He is threatening me. He threatened to take everything I have unless I just do something for him…"

As it would soon become clear, listening to the recording, the man who called himself Indra was making demands from this man. They started as small annoyances: punch and kick yourself, fall down some stairs. Just to let the killer know that he was actually in control. Then things stepped up. Buy a gun. He worked at a bank in Republic City. Go to the nearest bank in the town of Mayfield and shoot the first pregnant woman to walk in. If he did, his money would be safe. His life would be in order. It was an unborn child. Not a big deal to this man who never knew anything about family, and knew everything about money.

"I've heard about what has been happening," he said. "The murders. What if I am next because I don't do this?"

"You aren't actually considering this, are you?" Toph asked. She started realizing the thought process of many of the other victims if this was the same killer.

Brand the victim. Make a demand. A gruesome one at that. Killing children in a hospital. Blowing up a school, even if it was after normal school hours. Smother a recovering patient until they died.

If they failed, they would lose something. Money. Their job. Their bending (somehow). Their loved ones. Their lives.

"This explains the other murders," Toph said. "The ones killed without the marks. They were killed by the victims that were marked. As an attempt to stay alive. They had to kill, or bomb, or whatever. From the looks of it, kill something completely innocent, too, in order to keep something they cherished more than the preservation of the life of another."

"Chief," Jin said. "That doesn't explain why the victims were still stabbed to death, though. Does it? If they followed Indra's orders, why did they still get killed? They should not have died."

"Hm, that is a good point," Toph said. "Have there been any branded victims that we can safely conclude did not kill anyone in the time after receiving the mark and being stabbed?"

There were. A few cases that were not surrounded with murders and bombings of others. A woman who was found two hundred miles from the town in which she lived, indicating that she had chosen to run away rather than follow Indra's demands. She had once been a whore, doing the will of others, doing anything, for money. And for that line of work, she had made a good amount of it, but being prone to black market work, she achieved many things through cheating. But, she was found, and killed. The mark was on her back. When the police investigated her, they found that she had given away all of her money before running away.

Another man, armed with a gun, killed behind an old bar. He was a doctor at a hospital in one of the nearby country towns. Witnesses present at the bar said the victim approached the bartender with a gun. The bartender defended himself, subduing the victim, and a few minutes later the victim was found stabbed to death behind the bar. None of the witnesses saw the bartender run off, he just disappeared, and what was stranger was that the bartender was new. Different than the original bartender, not recognized by the regulars. No one could even describe his face except…

"Green eyes. Terrifying," one of the witnesses had said.

"I'd bet a lot of money it was him, the man called Indra. The victim had found him and wanted to kill him to end it that way, rather than murdering innocent people," Toph said. Her thought process was interrupted.

"Chief, someone has taken him," Jin said.

"Our man? How could you let him…" Toph said, furious.

"Our watching officer was shot. We have officers there now. We don't know where he went."

"He's going to fulfill Indra's demands. I don't care what it takes, secure every bank around here, and, hell, find every pregnant woman and make sure she is safe! This man is a fool. He is going to die either way. Even those who follow through with the killer's demands go down. Find him. Search every hotel. There aren't that many places to hide. We find him, detain him, then we go after Indra…"

Just then, the phone rang. The sheriff looked over to Top. "It's him."

Indra.

"He wants to talk to you…" the sheriff said, not knowing what to do. Awkwardly, he handed the receiver over to Toph. The call was being recorded and listened to by the other four officers in the room. Everyone had stopped getting ready and stood in silence, watching Toph grab the phone and speak.

"This is Chief Beifong."

The sound of light breathing, then the deep, confident voice came through. "Evening, Chief Beifong. I don't have much time with this case on my hands. My mind can't really be in more than one place so I will get to the point. You don't interfere with this. You don't make this thing public. I conducted this whole experiment out here so no one would ever hear of it until I was done. I swear," he said, a slight anger now evident in his voice, "If you make this known before I am done, it won't be good. This is my work, and I don't want it leaking, okay? Additionally, you come after me, you try to stop me before I am done, that would not be good either. I have to finish this project and you would just get in the way of that. So, like I said, don't interfere, and I won't include you in this experiment."

"You're a sick man, Indra. You have no right to bargain. I am coming for you."

"Shut up!" he yelled. "Look, I am sorry for that. I am sorry for the killing and all, but, I am an honest man. If I say I am going to take something, I will take it. I won't go back on my word. This has taken too much time, already. I swear, you will be my next case, my next lab rat, if you come after me. I know of you. I know of your ego. It won't refuse the glory of catching me, releasing my story to the public and rubbing it in my face. Why not let the local authorities continue on? The murder rate has been going down and I am bumping it up a bit, I will admit, so you don't have to worry about your statistics…"

"Look, you idiot. I am going to find you. Before the night is over. I am going to find you, and I am going to catch you. You're going down tonight, Indra. Count on it."

"Oh, excellent. Oh, I will. I will." The phone hung up.

Just as she said, within the next hour, the branded victim was found. Toph dismissed all officers and ventured to the small warehouse with no one but Jin. Armed with her metal cables and the sword she had crafted herself several years ago, Toph blasted the wooden doors of the warehouse open. Jin saw the sight, but Toph had felt it a mile away, mentally preparing herself.

The victim lied before them, in the center of a pool of blood.

Standing over him, trembling, the tall man with blood dripping from the small knives that appeared in his hand. Fierce green eyes.

"Indra. Drop the weapon," Toph said. She held the hilt of her blade. She knew he was still holding the three knives in his hand, but it was strange to her the way he was doing it. Almost as if the weapon was growing from his wrist.

"I expected you to be here," the man said. "I didn't expect that you'd go as far as dismiss your entire force. You want all the glory that badly?"

Toph unleashed the metal cable from her belt toward the man. He swung the blade in his hand and cut through the metal. Her suspicions were right. The weapon was embedded in his hand. Three sharp blades which extended and retracted due to a mechanical device under his skin behind his knuckles and up his forearm, the blades protruded through his skin and hovered over his index, middle, and ring fingers like a lethal exoskeleton. As he formed his hand into different formations, the blades went in and out of his skin, blood constantly dripping down as he continuously reopened the scars.

The blades were powerful. Lin's cables were useless against it, but her sword was constructed by her own hands of a much more powerful metal. She drew her sword, and even though the killer was only defending himself with a few slashes her way, she fought hard. He swung the blades for her face. She dodged the attack and countered with her sword, feeling contact with the man's hand.

Indra fell to his knees. Screaming in pain.

"Agh! What did you do?! Gah, my hand!"

He held his hand up. The pinky and ring finger had been sliced off, along with one of the three blades attached to his hand. Toph's sword had cut through the metal part of the mechanism holding the blades in place.

Indra clenched his fists tight, causing the blades to retract back underneath his skin. A small click sounded, indicating that they were locked. Never to be seen again unless he willed them to do so.

Jin witnessed the event. Toph ordered him to call the other officers and arrest Indra. The story was over the news. The killer who called himself Indra, forcing people to do horrible things for him. Toph and only a few officers who were able to intervene and easily wrap up the case. However, it did not gain as much traction as she expected since it took place outside of the city, but it was enough attention to the man's experiment to stir something within him.

Indra was put in prison for life. He did not object. He did not cry or panic or shake with fear. He accepted his fate. He even smiled at the hearing as he was led out when he walked by Chief Beifong.

"Ah, the great Chief. I see my story is all over the news now. And you…you are quite the heroine again, aren't you? The best there is, representing all that is good and righteous, eh?"

Toph just smiled back at him. "Have a good time in prison."9


	6. The PA

-The PA-

Manases wrote the last word in his book and looked up at the old man sitting in his bed. He rested his arms on his cane. A face that had done well against time and many years in the police force.

"The case sounded like a big deal, sir," Manases said. "But what does it have to do with my story? Why was this such an important part of Toph's life?" he asked.

Earlier that day, Manases walked to the police station, badge in his right pocket, prepared to impersonate a police officer in order to obtain information about a certain individual. Right up to one of the desks in the huge, main hall, hardly knowing how to act like a cop, he just let confidence convince the metalbender behind the desk.

"Hello, I'm from the precinct in west Crownsville. I am conducting an investigation and I need some records on a man named Devas Asura, please?" He showed the badge. The police officer eyed the badge then looked to Manases, who was trying not sweat, feeling watched and judged. hoping he sounded believable, hoping this was a normal thing to happen around here

"One minute. There is someone I need to speak to first."

Manases waited there. Anxious for what this officer would return saying. Would they arrest him if they knew he was lying? There were not a lot of people here. A lot of cops as well, walking in and out of doors and up and down long hallways going all over the place. It was strange to him knowing that Lin, the woman he was going through all this trouble just to figure out, was somewhere above him. Storming through the maze of hallways just over his head, giving orders, going over reports and cases, doing paperwork. Making a living. Protecting this city. What was strange was just thinking of her as an actual person that near to him. His trip so far in Republic City, she seemed like more of a character, her and her mother. Like myths.

"Sir, there is nothing we are legally allowed to share regarding that name." The young man had returned and had a piece of paper with just a few details regarding the name Manases was asking about.

"Are you sure? Devas Asura?" Manases said, slightly louder. Several people looked over at him with curiosity. "Nothing at all? I find that hard to believe."

It was a young man working at the desk. He started to sweat. Was he nervous about something? Was he trying to lie to Manases? Was this his first day? Does he hate when other cops have issues with him? Whatever the case, Manases didn't care. He just knew that he could break the kid and get something out of him. He was usually able to do that.

"I'm sorry, sir. There is nothing we can provide for you. It's top secret."

Manases tried to sound like he knew what he was talking about. "Really? And who made that decision?"

"What decision?"

"To make the record on this name top secret? I'd like to speak with him."

"I don't know if that is how it works at this station. Uhm, it was a really old file that hadn't been touched for a while. Looks like it was last updated by Toph Beifong and she isn't around anymore."

"And how is it that Toph Beifong put a file of _written text _together?"

"She probably had her assistant officer do it. Jin Guansang." The young man just said the name but may have immediately regretted it. Manases did not know. He was already in another room asking officers about the name he had just heard, and within the next forty minutes he was standing outside the apartment of Jin Guansang, the now old man who walked with a cane and did not have long before his memory would start slipping away.

Before the man answered the door, Manases recapped his facts.

_Let's see. You know someone cut Lin's face on a mission. That was all, but then why are your employers so interested in her scars? Am I missing something with that? It seems like it isn't all there. So then we got this house out by the factories where she grew up. Vandalized over the years and is a boarded up mess with some squatter. Unimportant, but among all the rubble, this name survived. Devas Asura. Looks like the author of a paper. Nothing else. Maybe he had squatted there as well or just used the place to store his things, before O-Ren came along._

Manases was taken away from his thoughts when he felt a hand on his. A gentle plea for attention. He looked and saw that it belonged to the old man, Jin himself, who had opened the door to a lost-in-thought Manases and was trying to greet him. He was a small man, a very timid looking one but also came off as being very welcoming.

"Excuse me," the old man said. "Can I help you with something?"

"Yes. Devas Asura," Manases said, jolting out of his thoughts.

The old man stopped for a second. Confused but also intrigued that Manases had said this name in particular. "I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, forgive me. Hello, Mr. Guansang. My name is Manases. I'm..." Manases tried to remember which identity he'd take this time. He went with the student. That was the most innocent, and to an old man like this, what wrong could he find in a student willing to learn and excel.

"Why do you ask about him?" Jin asked.

"I'm working on a project for a professor at a university. Mine is on the Beifongs, and while visiting someone who lives in Toph's old, abandoned home I found this." Manases held out the paper with the name on it. "I was told at the station that you might know something about this, and I would love to learn about the name and where it came from. Who it belongs to. All the reports on it are unattainable."

"I see. I was just there at the station the other day to pick up a few things. Benefits. I used to work for Toph in my younger years, then eventually for Lin. My life is on the downward slope now, and I guess there are certain things I have kept to myself for some time. A long time ago Toph made sure no one would ever read that file again, for reasons I am not sure, but she asked me never to speak of it again. Since she has passed, I've been meaning to tell the story, but no one has spared the ear to listen, but you seem so interested, and the fact that you know of Devas Asura is just fate. I knew there would come a time when I would finally tell this story. Won't you just come in? I think I can help you."

Manases happily agreed, although a thread of guilt slithered up and down his spine like a snake as he walked into the small apartment and sat down to hear his story. The story that would be told to him because he was just an innocent kid who wouldn't really know what to do with such heavy information.

"I'm sorry, I've forgotten my manners. You can call me Jin. The reason I know this story is because I used to be Toph's quiet little assistant officer. She never wanted a partner, but her blindness inevitably disallowed her from doing essential police work, as you can imagine. That was where I came in, even though half the time I was just reading articles to her about her, there were times when I was with her while she worked on really interesting cases. I even got to work on them, too, and I was just a boy, basically. Many of the cases were the usual drug busts, gang violence, political corruption cases. But there was one case that will always stand out to me, that never seemed like it would come back to me the years following until I heard you utter that name. A case that, for reasons unknown to me, has just been buried throughout the years."

The story of the killer in Mayfield. The killer who operated under the name 'Indra'.

"He singled Toph out for some reason," Jin said. "He knew of her, and how she liked to be in the spotlight when she did something well. And boy, she sure didn't make it a secret that she had arrested some big serial killer. Of course, the case was quiet the whole time while we worked on it. No one really knew the guy, his name, what he had done, just that he was a killer who did not live in the city, but Toph had graciously offered her services and had him behind bars in a matter of days. I think her gloating really ticked off the young guy. Not only had he told her not to come after him, he also told her not to blab to the press. She could have at least done that, but she was very proud of herself… Ah, I am sorry. You were wondering what this has to do with you. With the name Devas Asura. Well, let me tell you a few more details about this story. When we started paperwork for the guy, we could not find another name other than Indra. At least, no solid documentation of a name other than that. No birth certificates, no medical records, no one stepped up to even identify him. He never spoke. Crazy bastard. It was like he had come from nothing, not born, just simply made and placed on this earth somewhere. I could never explain that. The fact that we could not find a name for the guy. We just left it as Indra. No further identification. As long as he was in prison.

"There was something, though that we thought fit to tag on the record," Jin continued. "Something we found which we thought may have been his name. It sounded like a name. We searched a car concluded to be Indra's and found several papers. They were entitled in the same manner as that paper you have found. 'Devas Asura.' Hundreds of pages with those two words in the footer, we eventually thought it to be a name, maybe his name. But it was far from official, and no one talked, so we could not be sure. The only time he said anything, it was instructions, to us, not to read the papers because they were not done. He didn't say he had written them, just not to read them or take them. Well, Toph continued in the same manner that she always has, took the papers and locked them away somewhere."

"So, you think that the two are connected?" Manases asked. "You think this guy, Indra, got some kind of ideas from Devas or something?"

"I am still certain that they are the same person. Or rather, different representations, different sides, of the same person. Indra was just a killer name. His resulting persona from many different, clashing ideas. No other case that I have worked on has been as interesting or affected me like this one has."

"Is this man still alive today? Is he still in prison? What about these papers?"

Jin sighed. "Eventually I forgot about the case back then. I had to work on other things, and was only reminded of it when Toph told me to, heh, forget about it. But then Lin joined the force. Toph's young daughter who I had never met before that. No one did. No one even really knew she existed, and apparently she had been on the force for a while before we even knew it was Toph's daughter. But she was a natural. More contained than her mother in terms of her cocky attitude, but still a slight resemblance. But then a pretty traumatizing thing happened to the girl. One of Lin's first missions, she received that nasty wound to the face, scarring it forever. Two streaks across the side of her cheek just like the ones from the serial killer. No one really remembered what that mark meant except the few officers assigned to Indra's case. Many forgot about Lin's incident and the young woman slipped back into the shadows, doing her police work quietly and efficiently. And even though I and a few others remembered the Mayfield case, Lin's scars were still different than the ones the victims of that town received. There were two streaks, not three. It was on the face, as opposed to an area on the torso. But I saw the look on her that day, when Toph felt the wounds on her daughter's face, and recognized them immediately."

Manases sat up straight. His hand was trembling. He dropped his pen on the ground in excitement, while Jin bowed his head in sadness. "So that is it, then! It was that man that did it. Indra. He delivered those scars to Lin's face on one of her first missions, just like Tenzin said. It was only two cuts because his ring finger was cut off so he only had two blades left. I would expect three cuts if it was a copycat, but from your story, from Toph's reaction, it had to be him, right? That would mean he had to have broken out of prison to get revenge on Lin by cutting her daughter."

"Or," Jin said, "He was released somehow."

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know. I never heard anything about it until I saw that mark on Lin, and I knew something was wrong. I remember searching for something, about his release or a breakout, but I could never find anything, not even the papers, they were gone. And going any further would be going against Toph's wishes. I got nothing except a name of a shady professor from some university."

"So you are saying that this man was back on the streets again? And he is still out there now!?"

"Since the day Lin was wounded, at least to my knowledge, there has been no evidence of his return to his old ways. No one has been branded or killed by him as far as we know. There have been the usual crimes and threats and terrorism and bombings and shootings but none of that was ever tied to the string of murders committed by Indra. None of them fit with his methods. No one ever found him to be behind or related to anything after that day, and so it seemed he just disappeared. The fear faded. The memories of Indra sank into darkness and no one ever spoke or heard from him again. I fell out of touch with the force in my old age. I don't know if anyone ever found him. I don't know if Lin ever had to meet him face to face because of the scars, the mark. Maybe he turned up dead. Or if he is just living alone somewhere, hiding."

"It sounds like he is still alive. It sounds like he has branded Lin. But why her?"

"If he branded Lin, something would have happened by now. That was over thirty years ago. Whoever the man is, he is old by now. No one lives forever, son. No one is immortal."

"He could have people working for him," Manases said, actually feeling concerned. "He could be up to something and Lin could be in danger." He didn't know if he was really scared for her, or if generating fear and panic would allow him to squeeze more information out of people. If he told them it could save them from this madman. Either way, Manases would ride this train.

"If anyone is to be branded, Lin was probably the worst person he could have chosen. She fears nothing, and knows nothing but survival for herself and her citizens. If you are planning on speaking with her, I'd highly recommend you let her have a drink or two before doing so. She has a sharp tongue that'd cut you in half," Jin finished.

Manases thought for a few seconds. "Do you think Lin is just hiding something? Do you think she knows more than she is telling us?"

"There is no doubt in my mind that she does! But whatever it is, that is her business. Whatever she knows about Devas Asura, I do not. I know very little about the woman. Business was the only thing Toph and I ever discussed, and since Lin was not blind, she had no real need for assistance from me. Plus, by the time she started running things, at the time that Toph retired, I was also on my way out. My tasks became simpler, not as stress inducing. I guess people just liked having me around to do their paperwork, but I didn't mind it, but then I retired as well."

"What, if anything, could you tell me about Lin during the time you worked for her? Anything you found strange or worth noting?"

"Lin was always a little unpredictable. I was never on the cases she worked on, but I'd just hear things. Some cases she would burn through and have done in a day. Others she would forego sleep for several nights to work on them. Keep in mind, though, that almost all of her cases were closed successfully, just like her mother, but Lin's work ethic seemed very erratic to me. I was always confused by what she was doing. She would even occasionally leave to work on cases for...jeez, I don't even know who. Yep, at least I was always with Toph while on duty. Lin is a bit tougher to figure out."

"I wish I could just see her past. Like a diary or something. I am assuming she doesn't just have a diary on display somewhere that I can read?" Manases said, jokingly. It was awkward though. Jin did not laugh or even smile.

He thought for a second, then Jin spoke. "It is funny that you say that. I don't know if this is crossing the line, but I guess I have said too much already. Lin did keep a diary. A sort of log was what she called it to appear less feminine. I just would see her with it every now and then. I remember her keeping it up to date when I was still working. She stopped, though. She feared that someone would find it and read it. I think it might have been stolen or she burned it, but whatever the case, I am pretty sure she doesn't update it anymore."

Manases looked over his notes again. "You said you came across the name of a professor?"

"Yes. Ivan. A doctor of psychology at some university. I can't remember which. He also happens to be very…involved with many other things that surprised me. He was somehow the owner of the Gold Room, Republic City's most upscale club at the top of the Plaza Center Hotel. I don't know how he got that deal. He's also been accused of being involved with a lot of mafia activity, though not directly. If he actually was, he covered his tracks very well. There is a whole forum of people who come up with all these theories about the man, he is…was very intriguing to many skeptics. Several police officers have spent their lives investigating him and trying to catch him red-handed but they have never done it right. I wouldn't be surprised if he was involved in some shady business. That was why I thought he may have been involved in Indra's case, somehow knowing someone that could get the killer released."

"Is this investigation still on-going?"

"Not really. Ivan was found dead in his office. Suicide, they believe."

With that, Manases closed his book. It was the middle of the afternoon. A morbid afternoon, although he had learned a lot so far. Random stories and pieces of Toph's and Lin's lives. He would return to this man's apartment. He had many more questions to ask, but he just needed to find them, organize his facts and solve for the gaps. Right now, Jin was his only willing source of information. And he was nearly squeezed dry.

"You sound like a cop, in a way, the way you got all hyped up about this," Jin said. "What work did you say you were doing?"

"School project. Last class before I get my degree. For a professor I like.

"You don't ask questions like a student. A student gets what he needs and goes. You really seem to care. Beyond this 'classroom' you speak of."

"I guess that is just who I am."

"Sure," Jin said. "Well, I hope so. Come back if you like, although I don't know how much longer I will be alive, you know."

Even if it was a sad comment, Manases smiled. He didn't know why. To look polite, perhaps? The man sounded like he was making a joke, wasn't worth getting sad. Manases felt he just had to acknowledge that. He liked Jin.

"I'll take you up on that, we can have tea some time. I might need to grill you again for more questions, once I find out more things to ask about. Honestly, I really don't have anywhere to go from here."

Jin hesitated for a second, thinking to himself, weighing options, then spoke. "I wish I knew Lin better for you, kid. I want to help you out, but damn, she is a tough one to crack. No one really knows much about her. She had let very few people into her life and they are all dead of old age or have since been kicked out of that life of hers."

"Yeah. Seems that way so far."

Jin was pensive. He looked at his reflection in his mirror and tried to put in the words the leech of a memory in his head. A memory that continuously opened and reopened a chest of unanswered questions. Questions he also could not put in to words except the simple 'why'? Why did it seem so strange to him? He was thinking about a series of events which happened about fifteen years ago. His final year. The headlines of every paper listing names and codenames of the world's most dangerous people, and that they were all gradually filling up the prisons across the world. "Look, I'm not sure how much help this will be. It's just something that has always tugged at my mind, like a parasite and I can't get it off. Something that, every time I think about it, just adds to the enigma that is Lin Beifong."

Manases was giving the man his undivided attention. Anything to crack the code. To break through the walls and learn the truth about his subjects.

"You might be just shooting in the dirt here, but if you want something to do, there is this town nearby. Beyond the mountains, a very small town much like the Mayfield I have explained, but not a desert, obviously. It is called Redland. Now, a long time ago, when you were just a kid, the woman known as Toph Beifong retired from the force and lived out the rest of her years outside the city, while her daughter took her place as the new Chief and slowly began to gain a reputation as Toph's acceptable replacement. At the time, however, Republic City as well as several other cities around here were getting word that these extremely skilled and dangerous killers, assassins, were running rampant, hired to murder and gaining a notorious reputation, but the reason they were in the spotlight was because many of them were finally being arrested and imprisoned.

"Now, the thing about this town, Redland...it's just down the Capital Highway. I've been there a few times. Anyway, it must have been a little over a decade ago that these two folks from that town were arrested. Two killers. Here is the kicker: I am almost positive that Lin had left to visit this town at around the same time, just out of the blue, and when these two criminals were found, one had been knocked out cold by a rock, while the other was waist deep into the gravel of the road. Now, listen, that could be any cop. Any cop in the world, as they were all earthbenders. No one really put the two together, they turned to the reasonably obvious conclusion that it was an officer responsible. And when the papers came out, the local police officers in that area that were featured in the articles claimed responsibility for the heroic act. But I can make a pretty safe assumption that Lin being in Redland and these two being caught at the same time was no coincidence. Whether or not she was responsible, I think she at least had something to do with that one. It always makes me question her motives, though, and my own theories about her. I can't think of a reason why she would just leave like that to go to this town. What would be there for her?"

"That's definitely strange. You don't think it was anything like what you and Toph went to do in Mayfield?"

"I'm thinking it is, actually, which is why it is so curious to me that she would go there. Toph and I were called about a killer in Mayfield, and that case has stuck to my mind ever since. It was more provoking to me than any other case, which leads me to believe that whatever drew Lin to go to Redland might have been similar. I say this because, perhaps, if you are at a loss for a lead, you can visit the town and learn for yourself what happened. I'm too old to do it myself. That place can be dangerous."

"Do you know anyone I could talk to there that would have known?"

"As a matter of fact, I think I might. We kept a close eye on the ones that get released from prison and go out into the world again. This one got lucky with his punishment considering what he's done, and I bet he knows it. Lives out there in nowhere land. Calls himself: The Gent."


	7. The Gent: A Party of Three

**_/*_I switched the rating to mature. Well, this chapter might tell you why. It isn't anything excessively mature-themed, just a bit more violent, and some language and references to mature things so I thought it'd just be safe to switch the rating.*/  
**

_Piece_

-The Gent: A Party of Three-

Fifteen years prior.

Lin soared southbound down the Capital Highway in her black satobmobile, through the mountain ranges and into the rural realm beyond Republic City until the exit sign was in view with the name of the town signifying the end of her journey.

Redland was a small town. Northwest of Mayfield, but identical in nearly every way except the desert environment was replaced with a mountainous one. The surrounding area hardly red, and the town hardly a town. Three blocks of civilization inhabited by alcoholics, drug addicts, senior citizens, and pine trees. Woods and hills in all directions. Same trailer parks scattered throughout the rural area. Residents sitting in lawn chairs, drinking alcohol, spitting in cans. Shooting their rifles at empty bottles and cheering wildly at the sight of one shattering to pieces. Laughing and tipping their cowboy hats used to block the eternally beating sun. They smiled at you, their tongues visible through their missing teeth as they passed by in their rusted, old pickup trucks.

"You're from the city, are ya? Never seen the city, must be quite the beauty," the old, inn manager said with bright, curious eyes as the young Chief of Police checked in for a night. She smiled and nodded, then was handed her keys and ascended up the steps of the one-story building to find her room. The isolation of this setting was still new to Lin, who had always known nothing but the city, but she tried to adapt quickly to her surroundings. To the new people. Anyone from the city would probably view these locals as aliens with their accents and strange way of dressing. Lin didn't get distracted. She was here for a reason. Clues dispersed around her city which she followed and finally came to the conclusion that, this time, the answer she was looking for was to be found in Redland.

The room was small. One bed. Wooden floors that creaked. An antique of a lamp which barely functioned. The double-paned window overlooked the main street. Lin puffed on her cigarette as she surveyed the events below. Her hair was down and messily in her face. She disbanded her metal armor to escape the humidity of this country town in these summer months, leaving only a white tank top and her gray sweatpants. A few cars passed through the town, people getting off work and heading to the bars without even really thinking about it. Just doing it because it's just what they do.

The bar across the street. Green neon sign displaying the name of it. Lin sat for an hour. As the sun set, the sign glowed brighter into her room. Her window tinted green. She sat on her bed and sifted through her one, small bag. Black gloves she put on. A hair-tie that she then used to tie up her long, black and slowly graying hair in to a ponytail. Black leggings, which she wore as pants rather than the bulky sweats. Thin, black boots with metal lining the sole in order to replace the heavy, fully metal boots she had worn on the trip down, part of her standard police uniform. Finally, a thin, flexible combat jacket she put over her tank top. Turtleneck. A bit nicer than one she had seen another local wearing. As the sun descended, it became cooler. With these change of clothes, Lin was hoping she would not stand out too much in this town, at least not as much as she might have if she was strutting around in her shiny, Republic City PD outfit. Whatever was to happen, she wanted to keep her name as distant as possible to the eyes of the public, so dressing this way would be necessary.

Lin stepped outside, took a deep breath, and walked across the street, past her parked satomobile, and into the bar. There were a few tables and booths as well as the bar table. Several patrons struggling to fill the empty spaces. An old man sitting alone at one of the booths in the back near the bathrooms. Two younger men, drunk, sitting together on stools at the bar, joking and complaining about work. A young woman in a blue business suit, looking as if she was not from around here. Looking higher class. She drank a mixed drink and read the newspaper, hiding her face behind it and deterring attention toward herself from the others. She was also sitting at the bar.

Lin looked around but did not seem to see what she wanted to see. Patient, she walked over to the bar and sat on the far end from the front door, opposite the young, business woman reading the paper. Examining, Lin saw that one of the main stories in the paper today was about a hitman recently detained. These kind of things had been hot news these days: assassins turning up, people paid to kill other people, becoming infamous in many cities and slowly getting caught one by one. Each one renowned for this ability to murder. Either with a gun, with bending, with swords or knives or just their fists. As she took her attention away from the news story, Lin noticed that the two men had paused their conversation to watch her as she sat down, checking her out, then resumed their talk of the backbreaking life working as carpenters or construction workers or whatever they were.

The bartender stepped out of a back room behind the bar. He was a tall, younger man with a scruffy face. Skinny. White button down with jeans and boots. He stepped toward Lin to ask for her order when one of the two men nex to her spoke up.

"Get the lady one of what we are having. We will pay," he said. The bartender returned with a beer and smiled at Lin, showing the noticeable gaps in his teeth. Lin checked the beverage for anything out of the ordinary. Unlikely.

"What's your name, honey?" the man paying for the drink asked.

Lin was grateful for his act of kindness but was in no mood to start small talk with the man. She merely answered his questions. "Lin." The bartender stepped into the back room again as the other woman turned a page in the newspaper. She was hesitant to say her name out loud, but no one here seemed to know who she was.

"I ain't never seen you before. What is a gal like you doing around here?"

"I'm meeting someone," she said sternly.

Thinking she meant a man, the guy backed off. She knew this wasn't the one she came to meet. He had no idea who she was. The two men's conversation continued and eventually came to a very peculiar topic. Lin eavesdropped.

"Assassins just cropping up everywhere in the news. Who knew there were so many?"

"The hell you talkin about?"

"Yeah, people known worldwide for being good killers. That is their job. They just kill. Can you imagine? People tell you to kill someone and you just do it and get paid. They been turning up, though. Getting arrested. Just everyday people like bouncers and teachers and drivers but then records are found showing that they are actually cold-blooded murderers responsible for the deaths of all these people."

"Damn. Fucked up world, I'll drink to that," the other said, and raised his glass to drink to the rather dark reality.

The two finished their drinks and slowly but drunkenly stumbled out of the bar to head home. The bartender watched Lin drink her alcohol as he cleaned his mugs. Looking her up and down. Lin noticed. The men around these parts were a little less discreet and respectful with how they admired women. Lust would just be evident on all of their faces in the form of stares and wandering eyes and creepy, haunting giggles. She wouldn't want to be caught off-guard here if she were just another helpless girl.

The old man in the booth near the back, who hadn't said a word, eventually headed out as well, leaving only the two women. Lin sat there, still. The bartender took her empty glass and did not ask her if she wanted another. He walked around and started flipping some of the chairs onto the tables, indicating that he would be closing soon. Sitting in front of Lin was a very thick bowl of peanuts, nearly empty. Lin was wasted some time eating a few, hoping the one she came to meet would show up.

Across from her, this woman continued reading the paper. She had long since finished her drink and gave off a few sighs every now and then. Lin figured that that this woman worked here as well, maybe owned the place, and was waiting for Lin to finally leave. She looked well-off. Lin got anxious. Her man was absent, she knew it, but she also knew she had to come here. And she further knew she could not look suspicious in coming here. As she continued to sit there, however, not drinking or talking, this was becoming more difficult to do.

The bartender wiped down the tables, frequently looking over to Lin as she ate her peanuts. Perhaps he knew something about this meeting she was supposed to have here. Maybe someone had stopped by in the last day or two and this bartender would remember. The business lady put the paper down and pulled out a purse. She stuck her hand in and shifted around some metallic-sounding items until she removed a small mirror and began applying makeup to her face. Her face looked like it was already buried under pounds of makeup, but she did look very attractive, which may have been why she was shielding herself behind a newspaper while the other men were in the bar to avoid stares. Minutes passed and she continued to butter up her face. She had black hair and yellow eyes. A Fire Nation girl for sure. Maybe a firebender as well.

Lin zipped up her jacket. She wanted to leave. She thought maybe this was the wrong place. Something did not seem right. She became skeptical and soon was just going to resort to asking the bartender if he knew something.

"Anything else, miss?" the bartender asked. Lin smelled his breath from her seat. The smell of pure bacteria and alcohol mixed with the cloud of dirt and gunpowder surrounding the man. A true local.

Lin sat and thought a little longer. Yes. She did. She needed to meet someone. She came here to speak with someone about this person she had been after for a while now. Finally, a new lead had presented itself, and she was not going to let it go to a dead-end this time. She made up her mind. This guy better have something good to tell her. The bartender stood there waiting for an answer. He had to have known something. Coming to this bar was correct. Maybe this man knew why.

"I just need to speak with you about something, if you have the time?" Lin said calmly.

"Well, then, Ms. Lin, is it? Let me just get your tab all wrapped up in the back. Then we can speak all we want." The bartender walked through the swinging doors to the back room. The woman across from Lin remained, unmoved. Still sitting, still carefully crafting her face with the blankets of makeup. She looked at herself in her mirror, constantly adding and fixing her appearance. Covering exposed blemishes. Making her skin look smooth and less oily. She finally finished the procedure, smiled, and closed the mirror. Lin watched the woman and wondered what drove her to care so much about her visage. She had been beautifying herself for half an hour. Slaving over every little rough patch in her face that was hardly even noticeable. Nothing less than perfect. As opposed to Lin's face, which was free of any makeup. Which was not hiding behind a veil of chemicals. The two scars front and center for all to see. And this woman across from her did see them, she was staring at them not too long ago, which may have reminded her to doll herself up some more just now.

Lin had waited too long for the bartender to return with her tab, and her suspicions grew when she remembered that she couldn't have had a tab. The man next to her paid for her drink. So then what was the bartender even doing? She stood from her stool.

"Going somewhere?" Lin heard the voice from the woman, and she looked just in time to see the knife flying through the air at her face. Lin instinctively grabbed the thick, nut bowl and held it in front of her, the knife embedding itself in it. The woman pulled another knife from her purse and threw it. Not wanting to test the strength of the bowl against another attack, Lin tossed it, flipped backwards onto her hands, and kicked the throwing knife upwards, off its trajectory, contacting the blade with the metal of her boots. The knife stuck into the ceiling, infuriating the other woman. Lin got worried. This woman had an affinity for knives, and Lin hated that weapon.

Lin's suspicions and theories from before were validated when the woman unleashed a wave of fire from her fist toward the Chief. Lin dove behind a table and kicked it over as a shield, distracted by the heat as the woman jumped and pulled the knife out of the ceiling and walked through the inferno toward her target.

"Come out here, you bitch," the knife-thrower said, menacingly. This woman's name was Stella. Another assassin. One for the books. Notorious for her knife-throwing skills as well as her firebending. A wild, short-tempered, and unpredictable killer who wished more to be known for her looks rather than her deadly talent and lack of concern for the lives of others.

Stella spread one of the flames to walk through it when Lin rose from behind a table, having ripped one of the metal legs off of a stool seat. She swung it at the assassin, who grabbed the metal pole, pulled on it to force Lin toward her, and prepared to stab the Chief. Lin kicked the knife out of her possession, but Stella placed her hand on the metal pole and heated the conducting material with her firebending, only to realize it would be ineffective as Lin was wearing gloves. Lin, who noticed the effort, brought her knee to Stella's chest and then hit her in the face with the metal bar, delivering a painful blow paired with a burning heat of hot metal.

The two began to wrestle over control of the metal pole Lin had acquired until was kicked aside. The fight was taken around the dining area of the bar until Lin was forced backward by the woman's firebending once again, falling to the floor near the entrances to the bathrooms in the back, pushing herself away from the fire. Through the tall flames, Stella suddenly materialized, sprinting right at Lin, hoping to bash her face in with her fists burning with fire. Lin anticipated this and countered Stella's attack: she moved, grabbed the woman's arm and flipped her over her shoulder, through the swinging door into the bathroom where Stella landed on her back with a loud _slam_.

Lin wrapped her arms around Stella's body and then smashed the woman's face against the corner of the sink, bruising her cheek and shattering the porcelain structure. Grabbing a large chunk of it, Stella swung a component of the sink and hit Lin in the head, knocking her back into a bathroom stall. Stella struggled to get Lin into a headlock, having to resort to viciously punching the Chief between her legs to subdue her, but Lin fought to break free still despite the massive pain. Stella was able to slowly move Lin's head and, without anywhere else to turn, stuck it in the toilet bowl in an attempt to drown her. Laughing as she did. Lin flailed and reached around her, clasping the long metal pipe which extended from the toilet into the wall. She tore it off its hinges, sending water shooting into the air and draining the bowl her head was in. She hit Stella in the knee with the heavy, metal object. Forcing her backwards. Lin then swung the pipe at the woman's face, badly scraping it, sending a splatter of blood against the mirrors. She had mangled the front of the woman's skull and undid whatever pounds of makeup had done earlier that day. The woman fell down, unconscious.

Lin dropped her weapon and pushed her wet hair out of her face. Her legs were sore and wobbled after being punched in in some very sensitive areas, and now she was feeling the effects of her wounds as her adrenaline wore off. She limped toward the assassin, who was out cold, and thought to herself that the woman _had_ put up a good fight, but then her thoughts were cut short when she noticed the door open. The bartender walked in with his double-barrel shotgun and the adrenaline returned to her as he blasted two slugs into Lin's stomach. The Chief fell onto her back, the wind blown out of her, unable to get her bearings but still clinging to life.

The man whistled, impressed. "Well, I'll be. You're something else if you can survive that one. I mean, point blank. 00 buckshot. You've no doubt seen this kinda gun before. You can blow the head off of a moose-lion with these bad boys. But damn, you just take two shots straight to your stomach and the only thing blowing out of you is a little blood and air. And you're still squirming around."

Lin grunted in pain. She struggled to roll over and get back on her feet.

"Oh, I wouldn't try. It looks like it hurts and the more you move it will just get worse as those pellets move around inside ya. So, just lie there a little bit. I need to put out this fire, make a call, and collect a certain amount of money so I can get out of this hell hole." The man looked at the other assassin's face before he left. "Damn, you really messed up her face. She ain't gonna be happy with you whenever she wakes up. Guess I'll have to take care of her. It may have taken two of us to finally get ya, but at least we did it."

The bartender walked to the bar and dialed a number on his phone. "Yep…got her right here. I assume you will be paying me once she is done with?...well, no, not dead yet. Bitch survived a point blank shot. You were right. Ain't never seen that…well, just transfer the money. I will have her dead by the morning. Ain't part of the deal what I do with her before she dies, is it? I know of a nice motel in the next town and my woman and I would have a good ole time with this one. She is actually pretty, I must say. Well, glad to be of use to you, sir. I expect my money in full. I'll call you in a few hours."

The man walked back to Lin lying on the ground. Losing consciousness. "He didn't seem to happy. Thought he would be. But, the rest of my money should be coming in tomorrow. Until, then, I think you and I should have a little fun. At least for your sake. Before you die. Help me help you. And you better not be havin no temper tantrums. I will make the experience a whole lot worse if ya do. As for my name, well, you can just call me the Gent. Gosh, little lady, you sure are cute. And you don't even need makeup like this one. Only problem is that gray in your hair. How old are you, huh? Can't be much older than thirty would be my guess."

Lin didn't answer. She just looked at the Gent, but he could not tell what she was filled with. Whether it was fear or anger or apathy he did not know.

"You might just be my best catch. Now the man who hired me said to keep an eye on you if I'm gonna wait to kill ya," this made Lin look up at the bartender, partially interested. "I'll keep you good and sleepy until we get there. It isn't a long drive, don't worry. Now, you're going to do what I want you to do tonight. It may involve things that you don't like or aren't used to or may just be against in general. But you are going to do them, and when you feel all dirty and used and disgusting, then you are going to die. Really, it is mercy to you. I am doing you a favor here. And I'll try to make the experience before your end worth your while. All my targets will agree that I do that well."

Lin was knocked unconscious, tied and loaded into the back of the Gent's truck. He laid Stella into his backseat and started the car, driving east toward the next town. Middle of the night, the moon lighting their way. Lin soon began to regain consciousness and regretfully became aware of her situation. It didn't look good. This was about the worst it had ever been during one of these trips of hers out of Republic City. Hands and legs tied. Woozy. She wasn't all there. It'd be tough to bend anything unless she was just sitting on dirt. No direct contact with metal either except the car, and she did not have the concentration for that at the moment. But she was not worried. Maybe because she was so light-headed to be burdened with something so heavy like her own demise in the near future, or maybe she just knew she was a Beifong and would find a way through this, either by getting out of it or just being tough enough for the sick treatment this man was about to force upon her.

As they neared their destination, the female assassin started to stir.

"Where are we?"

"Relax, Stella. We've made it. We've got her."

The female, Stella, looked back and saw Lin lying in the back of the truck. She grinned, but the grin was short-lived as she saw her face in the mirror. Her horribly mutilated face as a result of its contact with the detached, cold metal of the bathroom pipe.

"Dammit," the bartender said, trying to turn away all the mirrors.

"That bitch! Look what she did! My face! My face! What the fuck did that bitch do to me? My face is ruined. Ruined!"

"Stella calm down. We'll get you fixed up, okay?"

"No, no, no! My beautiful face is destroyed. It's gone! It's ugly!"

"Stella, for goodness sake. Calm down now! I'll screw up your face even more if you keep screaming."

But Stella could not stop. She screamed and cried and began losing her mind. Punching the chair and the ceiling, having a fit of rage. The sight of her horrible face made her feel detached from who she was, and she could not handle this. Could not handle seeing a face of a different person in the mirror. She had worked hard to get and maintain that look. Her confidence and control and pride all lost. She forced the bartender to stop the car. She refused to stop yelling until he did.

"You better stop. I swear, I swear, you prick, I will light this car on fire," a small flame burned in her hand and she held it to his seat. "I will light this fucking car on fire if you don't stop right now!"

_Shit. Shit,_ the bartender thought. He pulled the car over. They were on an empty road in the middle of nowhere between one mountain and another, heading for a different, barely populated town.

Stella jumped out, opened the back of the truck and pulled out the barely conscious Chief of Police and began punching her in the stomach where the gun wounds were, as well as in her face.

"Yeah, how do you like it!? I'm going to completely ruin your face like you ruined mine, you stupid bitch! Bleed and hurt you whore!"

There were no cars passing by, but the bartender looked around nervously as this girl screamed at the top of her lungs and punched and kicked Lin's body. He tried to restrain her but she always broke free. Soon she was just yelling at Lin, her fists too tired to punch her anymore. Lin breathed quickly through the pain.

"Ugh, you ugly piece of trash. Feels pretty awful doesn't it? I hope you have a family or something that will see how hideous you're dead body will be so that none of them can hide their disgusted looks any longer!"

Lin's head pounded. She lied, in great pain, against the gravel. But she was still alive, still awake, still conscious, and the future was still bright for her because of the stupidity of this girl, Stella, in allowing Lin to be once again immersed in her element. Stella heated her hands to the temperature of a fire and prepared to place them against Lin's face when a rock jutted out of the ground and clashed into Stella's chest, breaking several ribs and knocking the girl onto the ground.

The Gent gasped and ran to stop Lin but found himself unable to move. His feet had sunk into the ground like it was mud. He continued to sink down by the will of the earthbender before him. Lin sat up and bent a sharp rock out of the ground with nothing more than a turn of her head to cut the rope holding her hands together. She then untied her feet and stood up slowly, cracking her neck and back and wiping the blood from her mouth and nose. Gent was terrified. Completely vulnerable now againt the wrath of this woman he had shot and was about to kill just minutes before.

Lin simply walked up to him, wobbling, and stood before him as the sun began to rise. Blocking its rays from hitting his face. She was just a tall, menacing silhouette to him. She breathed then just asked, "Okay," she spoke slowly, deep breaths frequently interrupting her speech, "I need to speak with you. I just want to ask you something, and after everything that has just happened, I really doubt you will be able to hide behind ignorance. This makes things a bit easier."

"W-What?"

"Who sent you to meet me? To kill me?"

"I…I don't know who it was, actually. I swear. He baited me with money. That was all I needed and I agreed. He said you were impossible to kill, and that I had to prove him wrong. Gave me a quarter of the money at first, and I was astonished by the amount, so Stella and I teamed up to do the job. He said you would come to that bar, the girl with the scar on her face. Whoever he is, he wanted you, lady. I don't know why. He was hunting you. And when he heard I got you, it just sounded like he knew it couldn't be true."

"I see." Lin looked at the sun rising through her swollen face and black eyes. Through the hurt. The man watched her curiously, expecting his death imminent from this woman. He had no idea who she was or how she was this powerful. Lin turned around and started his car then drove away. Back to her car in Redland across from the bar that was swarming with police officers investigating the crime scene left by her, The Gent, and Stella. She just slipped away unnoticed, phoning the police shortly after that the ones responsible were stranded in the middle of a highway due east. She prompty returned to Republic City, where doctors removing shards of shotgun pellets from her stomach would tell her how amazing it was that she survived and that she would have to wait a few weeks before returning to work, only to find out later that she had gone back to work only the next day, as if nothing had even happened, her swollen and bruised face quickly healing and returning to the way she had always looked.


	8. The Lucky One

-The Lucky One-

The silver satomobile sat still in front of the old, wooden cabin deep in the woods on the outskirts of the town of Redland. On the front porch sat a man in a rocking chair, beer in his left hand, shotgun in his right, staring directly into the eyes of the young reporter who sat in the parked silver satomobile, contemplating the danger of the situation in which he was about to place himself.

_You're prepared for this. You knew things might get hairy. Just be confident. Stand up straight. No funny business._

Manases opened the door and stepped out of his car, slowly walking toward the house.

"Excuse me," he said to the man on the porch.

"You lost, boy? You sure look it." The man stood up. He sounded angry. Manases summoned some courage and continued toward the man's house.

"I am sorry to bother you, sir. I am just wondering if I may ask you a few questions?"

"You a cop?"

"No."

"Well, sorry but 'Yes' was the correct answer if you wanted me to talk. I ain't got nothing to say to nobody unless they a cop. And since you ain't, then that about does it for us. I suggest you get going." The man stood on the edge of his porch and tossed his empty beer bottle to the side. Manases stopped approaching the house but did not turn to leave. The man he was looking at was nothing more than a tall, skinny hillbilly with a wife beater and torn up jeans. Two missing teeth right in the front of his mouth. A gun he was not supposed to have, having been in prison for killing.

Manases knew he had stepped into the lair of a man who had once been a cold blooded killer. He detected, or at least hoped he detected, some change in the man. "They call you the Gent?"

"Who told you that?"

"A man in Republic City."

"Never been there, but whoever this man was, he's only half right. They _used_ to call me the Gent. And believe me, squirt, it wasn't because I acted like one. I've had to take out turds like you, simply blowing your head off then I'd go get a beer that same night and think nothing of it. That was a long time ago. That was when people knew the name, The Gent. When it was feared. When coming face to face with the man who held that title meant your imminent end. A suicide wish, playing around with me. The Gent. But things have changed. That name is no more than a fence to keep people like you away from me for fear of your own death."

"Doesn't seem to be working too well in this case."

"No, it doesn't, does it. You're still here. And you ain't even pissing your pants. Have to give you that one. Bet you're probably aware I can't use this gun. You're probably aware that it's unloaded. That'd be illegal. And trust me, I'm a model law abiding citizen. That's all that the people in that town know about me. They don't know my name, my past, none of that, and I'd appreciate if it stayed that way."

"I understand."

"Good, then you probably understand that I want you to leave, but if you don't, then I'll just tell you: I want you to leave. Ain't nothing to be learned from me. I ain't done nothing wrong since I been out of prison. I work, I eat, I drink, and I leave everyone else alone. You trying to find dirt on me now you best move on."

"Your time since prison doesn't interest me. The reason for going there, however, is what does."

"Changes nothing, kid. You can find that all out anywhere. It's all in the papers. Look there. Ask your friend that told you about me. I don't care, and no one else does, so why make it an issue? Everything you'd _want_ to know, I told the press. Find it there, and leave me alone. I'm trying to better myself. Those documents contain who I once was. I'd rather not go into it."

"That is reasonable. The only problem is what I want to know, and that kind of information that I'm looking for isn't in any of the papers."

The Gent turned and started walking into his house. "Then you came here for nothing. I can't tell you nothing more than what happened."

"So then you don't know anything about a woman named Lin Beifong?"

The Gent stopped before he went inside. The name was like a sting. He was hoping he would never hear it again. A name that kept him here, making him too scared to venture beyond the small town of Redland for fear that he would one day cross paths with the woman again.

"I know the name. Who doesn't?"

Manases looked at him and waited a little longer. The Gent hesitated.

"I suppose," he continued, "the real question is if I knew the name then, all those years ago, in which the answer would be, well, no. I did not." The Gent turned and walked slowly back toward the steps of his house. He sat on them and put his gun to his side on the ground. He didn't know how to explain the rush of emotions and feelings coursing through him at that moment, but he had a strong urge to release it all and tell this stranger who had shown up no more than fifteen minutes ago.

"And what was the outcome of not knowing this woman's name?"

The Gent gave Manases a strange look. The man was really trying to pry into his life, pull at every loose thread until the story was clear. "Why do you think you deserve to know? What brought you here with the idea that she had anything to do with this?"

"I can see that just the sound of her name bothers you, Mr. Gent. Perhaps it has been bothering you ever since. History tells me that you were once an assassin, and reliable sources tell me that the day you were arrested, just outside of this town, was the same day that Lin Beifong decided to take a secret trip to the town of Redland, the one just down the road there, but I guess it was not so secret since the man who told me obviously knew of her excursion. And now I know, and you know that I know, but now, I want to know what you know."

The Gent stared forward, at nothing, the memories piecing together in his head of the day he was called by the mysterious employer.

"You take one step closer to me and I'll be within my rights to beat the shit out of you for trespassing. If it will get you to leave...alright, it was fifteen years ago, I guess it was. Maybe a little more," The Gent said. "When I was just a stupid kid doing stupid jobs with this woman named Stella. Crazy bitch, she was, but we worked well together. She was way more nuts than I ever was, and did a lot more terrible things. Threw knives like they were bullets, and couple that with her firebending and you had yourself a pretty damn unstoppable killer. I was never as crazy. I went along with the missions because I was always down for anything. I was stupid and naïve and thought I could do whatever I wanted so I did. She usually did most of the killing, which is why she is still in prison, and I got out. I just got lucky, though. Ain't no reason why I should be walking these streets, a free man. Not that Stella should be instead of me. I hope I never see her again. Never met anyone so self-obsessed. She probably had about one hundred thousand yuons worth of makeup. The worst case of vanity I had ever seen. She'd probably spend about three hours before each job just doing her makeup…"

"Lin," Manases interrupted. The Gent was beginning to pour too many details out to the young boy who had coaxed him into talking. "What about Lin?"

"Right. Lin. One day. We got a call. A job from someone we didn't know. Job was to kill a police officer named Lin from Republic City. Now sure, everyone knows the name Beifong. Everyone knows the name Toph. And now, most people know the name Lin. But this was over fifteen years ago. I only learned about Toph in the little schooling I ever had, and the only thing I ever knew about her daughter was that her name was Lin Beifong, a fact that I had long since forgot instantly. At the time of this phone call, the name, 'Lin' was nothing more than another name of another police officer to a guy like me, another faceless target, having never been to the city. He even told me she had a scar on her face, and still, I never associated the woman with the legend. But I hesitated. Because who was this guy? He didn't tell me, but he had a very good way of convincing people. My bank account had a substantial amount of money in it, and according to this guy, that was only a quarter of what I would get when the job was done. So we agreed.

"He told me she'd be at the tavern in Redland. So we waited. Having no idea that the Lin he asked us to snuff was the Lin that was bred and raised by Toph Beifong, I'm expecting some young, female cop, probably good looking, but dumb in the head and cocky and feeling superior and all that sick shit. I thought nothing of it. I was just going to let Stella go wild and kill the girl in an instant. She loved killing other women. I soon realize, unfortunately, that things are just not what we expected. Next thing I know, I am looking in the bathroom at the unconscious and bloodied body of Stella, with this girl, Lin, standing over her, not in the best shape, herself, either.

"It was impressive. Lin had taken down one of the deadliest women in the world. I had respect for her. Not at all what I had in mind. It was clear why we were getting paid so much. As usual, I got lucky. No skill or anything, just a lucky shot right into Lin's chest. I tell you boy, I ain't never seen anything, not even the biggest tigerdillo or moose-lion take a blow from this shotgun from that distance like Lin did that day. It almost seemed impossible. Point blank, she should have been obliterated. I've shot some humans with this things and nearly separated their torsos from their legs, but she just took it and struggled to get back up for more as if she had no more than been punched or something.

"After it all happened, I started realizing that she must have known the whole time that she was going to win. We had come the closest to killing her, shot and beaten and tied up in the back of a truck. But somehow, and I can never understand it, she just knew she'd get back safely and just continue her life like nothing had happened. Like nothing was unusual about the experience. Later on, when Stella stupidly placed Lin on a gravel road and then got her ass handed to her by the _earthbender_, Lin just stood up and walked over to little terrified me and just asked me why we were trying to kill her. She started chatting with me like she intended to back at the bar before all the mayhem occurred. What went through my mind at that moment was just utter confusion and disbelief. This woman asked to speak with me in the bar in Redland, as if it was important, then we try to kill her by throwing knives and hitting her with sinks and putting her head in a toilet, shooting her, threatening her with rape and death and throwing her in the back of a truck and when she overpowers us after all that she merely resumes our conversation as if the whole ordeal was nothing more than a usual but petty annoyance that she was almost expecting and had gotten used to dealing with by then. And we were trying, to scare her, to anger her, to make her give up, but the way she spoke it sounded like she was completely unaffected, like our attempts were childish and she had seen it all before and forgot to react to it the way we intended. Then she...left."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Shame, kid. Shame. Humiliation that we were bested by a single cop. A single woman. So we lied. Lin. She seemed as crazy as we were back then. That was fifteen years ago. I did my time, and I like to believe that I am a changed person now. I try to contribute and avoid, you know, killing human beings. Leave behind the name, Gent, and just hope that with that the rest of my past is buried and forgotten so I can feel like a new person. But I don't think my past will ever stop shaping me. It's like a scar I'm always going to see, like the mutilation on Stella's face that she will forever be haunted by, but I guess only I can see mine. Maybe that is why I can't leave this place and go near the city. It's almost like my daily dosage of 'good citizen' medicine, reminding me of the horrible road I was on when that happened." The Gent opened another beer and sipped on it while Manases felt for his keys. "You know, she really changed me that day. Lin. I've seen some pretty scary and mindless killers in my day, but I've never come across something like her. Rock hard she was. Could take the most lethal blows and her heart keeps beating through it, and she just presses on. I didn't know how to live with myself after that encounter. So I just tried to change. I always felt watched by her, and it legitimately scared the hell out of me, thinking she'd just be there, and no matter what kind of gun or blade I had she'd be able to walk through it all."

"Anything else about Lin you could tell me?"

"Maybe you should talk to her when you get a chance. I bet you'd feel a little like me after my conversation with her that one, single day."

"I'll give it a try soon enough."

"That was kind of strange, kid."

"What was?"

"I've never told that story. I never thought I would. I was sure I never wanted to recount it again, but here I just did to you, a complete stranger. I don't know if it was the way you talk or look but I just felt the need to tell it."

"I guess that is good for me, then."

"Yeah, and potentially dangerous for anyone else. Better be careful with that talent of yours."

* * *

The country roads passed through grasslands and mountains which soon turned to concrete on the Capital Highway. Only an hour drive back to the city. Even though Manases had more facts, he had nowhere to go from here. He crossed one of the main bridges over Yue Bay and was once again in the midst of heavy traffic and densely populated sidewalks. And no idea where to turn next. A dead-end with Tenzin, not enough, specific questions yet for Lin, The Gent was useful for only a single story, and no one else really existed that knew the Chief. He would have to rely on Jin a little more for now.

It felt strange hearing these stories from people. It was as if he could displace himself in time while hearing them, and instead of just listening to words, he was watching these people like actors on a stage, and he felt part of the show. He could hear their thoughts, their conversations, see their expressions of happiness and sadness. Really feel the emotion.

Manases drove through the busy streets and came to a red light. He heard a yell from the sidewalk. A man had run into the street perpendicular to Manases, rushing to work and trying to beat an oncoming satomobile after the light had changed. The car was going full speed, trying to make the light. the pedestrian wasn't going to make it, and the car had seen him too late to stop in time. Manases just stared through his windshield. He was about to see someone get crushed by a car, and although he wished there was something he could do, there was little...to little time. It was just an instant. The man was too far away from him. In the middle of the road, the civilian stopped out of fear, paralyzed, looking at the car, his death before him.

Just then, a metal cable wrapped around the man's waist and he was yanked out of the road onto the sidewalk. A metalbender had gotten to him in the last second, saving him except for possibly a few bruises from the whiplash and the metal cable. Gasps were heard around the scene, but it wasn't as large as the gasp in Manases's head. The metalbender who had reacted to the scene and saved the man looked so familiar, but just in a different outfit. When he looked up to speak to the bypassers that the situation was okay, Manases recognized him finally.

_O-Ren._

The squatting stoner who lived in Lin's old house was actually a cop. Was he undercover? Was he just a different person outside of work? Whatever the case, he was a metalbender, he had a badge, he was the real deal. And best of all, he worked directly with Lin. This prospect distracted Manases from returning to Jin. Manases realized that O-Ren would most likely smoke and get stoned again tonight in Lin's house, if that was routine. He would have the opportunity to speak with someone who worked closely with Lin, and that someone's inhibitions would be greatly lowered by the substance.

Would that help more, or would it just hinder the interview? Manases didn't know. But he would be back at that house again that evening, just like last night. By nightfall. Tomorrow was Thursday. He needed to hurry before his 'chance meeting'.


	9. Sokka (text): The Dwelling Place

_Piece_

-Sokka (in text) Pt. 1: The Dwelling Place-

Fifty years prior.

_I knew something was wrong, immediately after I awoke. The air was thick, I could hardly breathe it. Beads of sweat on my face, my clothes drenched in it. A foul smell in my nose. My extremities shaking, my feet were useless. My body ached. I just fell out of my bed and lied there on the ground. Helpless until I crawled to the phone. _

_I felt blind. Truly blind, for the first time in so long._

The phone rang. His phone never rang unless there was a serious issue. Dawn. He had been in a deep sleep, and he never expected the phone to break the silence of his room at this hour. He jolted awake. Something had happened.

Sokka sat up in his bed and reached for the phone. On the other end, he heard the nervous breathing.

"Toph? Is that you?" Sokka asked, recognizing the pitch of her voice.

"S-Sokka. Please, come over," her voice trembling. Choking up. He could almost feel the tears as he heard her gasping, trying to catch her breath. "Something isn't right with me. I'm…scared."

Sokka did not waste any time. On foot, in a matter of minutes he was a block away from her small, apartment room, sprinting. Those words…they made his mind race. This wasn't good. Toph never even joked about being scared. She never sounded vulnerable. The shield of impenetrable metal she had built around herself, something had breached it. The sun had only just peaked over the smallest building of Republic City by the time Sokka burst through the front door of the Chief's apartment building.

Up the stairs. Fifth floor was her room. His heart pounding. What was he about to see? What if he was too late? The air became thick. Hard to breathe. He started to sweat. The world around him seemed to slowly turn red as he ascended.

Finally. Her room. An eerie red light glowed underneath the door. It stopped him for a second. Whatever small hope for normality he had left was erased when he saw that red glow. He opened the door slowly.

Toph lied against the wall, next to her telephone opposite her bed. Breathing hard. The red that had shined underneath the door was now the color illuminating the entire room. Everything colored a dark red, like the color of blood. The messily covered bed, damp with what he hoped was not actually blood. The room was so hot, too. The unsettling color was coming from a few red lights loosey attached to the walls. The room was hot, but it was not the lights giving off the heat. It was just humid from sweat. What had Toph been doing here?

Sokka ran over to Toph. She was naked, but she had wrapped herself in a blanket, albeit sweating through it. Trying to ease her breathing. She just looked forward. Before he spoke, she reached her hand up to feel him, and suddenly he could tell that the majority of her uneasiness was being calmed. A few deep breaths later and she was no longer trembling. Sokka merely sat next to her while she calmed down. He didn't want to ask what happened. She had obviously been through too much for her to handle. She had only asked him to come over so far, and that was all he did. If she wanted to tell him anything, he would wait.

After a few minutes, Sokka slowly stood to remove the three red lights dimly illuminating the room, but then realized the purpose that they were there to serve. As he was about to detach one, he noticed a tray containing a wet substance on the table across from the bed, three pieces of white paper floating on the liquid. Sokka picked them up to look at them, and then looked up to see a piece of string above him strung across the wall with clamps on which to hang objects. It became clear to him that Toph's room had been transformed into a darkroom, and these papers were undeveloped photographs. What horrible images were being cooked up on these slips of paper? What terrible scene was about to arrange before Sokka's eyes? He saw no camera in the room, and knew that Toph hardly had use for one. A flimsy idea with no support that Toph took these. Someone else was here. But then, what would be the point of pictures left for a woman that everyone knew was blind?

Sokka opened a window to let the air blow in, hoping to cool off the Chief. Before detaching the lights, Sokka stared at the pictures in the trays, undergoing their chemical reactions to create the patterns of colors which may provide a good representation of what happened last night.

"The smell," Toph said quietly, over and over. Sokka noticed her speaking and looked over. "What is that smell?"

He knelt down next to her. "Toph, please tell me what happened."

"That smell. I can't get rid of it. It's just lingering. It smells so rotten. Do you smell it?"

Sokka didn't know what to say. The room just smelled like heat and sweat. The city air was blowing in now. He did not smell anything rotten.

"Toph…" he said, reaching for her. He started to hug her, but his contact made her flinch in fear. Whimpering. He was unsure how to respond.

"I can still feel it, too. Still smell it. Still feel it. Still feel...Sokka, It seemed like just a bad dream. A horrible dream. A nightmare that I could not awake from. Like something was forcing me to stay in it. There were demons that were rubbing their hands all over me, violating me. I saw colors, Sokka. Awful colors mixing together. Menacing colors. They were trying to hurt me and I started to sweat. I could not escape the feeling that I was being touched in this nightmare I had. I thought it was nothing more than that. I thought that when I woke up, it would all be over, but it just got worse. Finally I broke the paralysis after what seemed like hours. But...I woke up to realize that it was_ real_. It had really happened. I was unable to move or wake while it all occurred. I can still feel the hands that were all over me. It's like he is still here, still touching me, still violating me, and I'm helpless. He's destroyed me."

Toph did not have to say anymore for Sokka to realize what had happened. He was angry that it had, that he was too late. That he could not have been here to stop it. A disgusting rat hurting his friend like this, he clenched his teeth. He couldn't bear to think of it, but he couldn't even imagine the pain that Toph was undergoing. He just hugged her. She resisted at first, her body shaking, but she then accepted it and buried her head into his, trying to suppress the feeling of violation. The feeling of her body being trespassed by a stranger.

She continued to sweat even though the windows were open, cooling down the hot room with the fall breeze. Trying to sweat off the dirty feelings, trying to rid her nose of the rotten smell. But as she sweated more, she felt more and more as though it was her own body that had become rotten. The smell of her own flesh tarnished by the filthy hands of some perverted psychopath. The stink of her now contaminated soul.

"I feel so…disgusting."

"Toph, you did nothing wrong. Do you hear me? Don't let yourself think otherwise."

Toph wasn't crying or shaking anymore. She just stared straight, confused and scared and sick to her stomach. Sick of herself. Sick because she still felt the hands all over her. Hands. She would not forget that feeling. It stuck to her like glue. The hands of the one who had gotten past her protected fortress.

"I couldn't hear him. How did he get by me? How did I not hear him? Why didn't I? Why, why…"

Minutes passed like an eternity. Toph sat on the ground, contemplating her ordeal, trying to rationalize with herself, that she was still pure, that she was wrongly violated, that she was not rotten like the smell and it was not her fault. But repeatedly, she was defeated by the opposing side. The opposing thoughts. That she was an awful person. That she had failed. Fallen. Lost. Weakened and vulnerable and puny and helpless.

Disgusting.

_Defeated._

_But I can't be. I'm Toph._

"What is it?" Toph asked. Sokka was examining the developing photos, the image beginning to come into view. "I know what you are looking at. They are photos." Toph's voice was low and serious now. Trying to climb back to her old self.

"I think whoever did this to you left them here. But why? He must know you wouldn't be able to see…"

"He doesn't want me to see. He wants the world to see. Give them to me."

"Toph," Sokka said. The image had fully appeared on the papers. Sokka had only a second to look at them before Toph's voice raised to a yell.

"Sokka! Give them to me, now. Give them to me so that _no one_ will ever see them."

"Toph, there is someone in these, what if it's…"

"I don't care. I don't care I don't care I don't care. Just give them to me. Right now. Right this second. I want them in my hands, Sokka. Now!"

Sokka did as he was told to calm down the unsettled chief. He knew things were not going to be okay with her just by the way she talked. She held the photographs upside down. Sokka did not have the chance to see them.

"These will never see the light of day."

"Toph, I don't understand. These are important. They can help us catch this guy."

"Don't worry about that. One way or another, he is going down. I'll find him myself, but you, you don't speak of this to anyone. You don't show these ever. I don't know why he did it to me, but I never want anyone to know about this."

Sokka was concerned. Toph's pride was mixing into this situation and steering it in a direction he was opposed to. "You have to tell at least the other officers. This is serious, Toph, do you understand that?" He wish he had taken that back.

It was as if Toph tried to summon her old, intimidating self, but rather than confidence, it was fear out of which she now drew this commanding attitude. "You think I don't know? You think I don't know how serious this is, the big powerful protector, now brought down to her lowest point? The guardian of Republic City who now feels gross, disgusted with herself, dirty and violated and weak? This city is dark and evil sometimes, Sokka, but at least these people have me. At least I offer them some hope for safety, for peace, for protection. I always have their backs and I never need someone to have mine. I never need to be protected. I am their all-powerful warrior and they need that more than anything now. I represent all that is good to them, and if they know that I have failed today, then they'll start to lose whatever hope I was lucky enough to give them. No one is going to know about this, Sokka. No one."

And no one did. Against Sokka's wishes, he stayed quiet, hoping Toph would come to her senses and realize the foolishness of what she was doing. But she never did, she never told, and no one ever knew, so nothing was ever done about it. It had been a few weeks of insomnia, long showers in an attempt to cleanse herself, and constant paranoia before Toph was able to lie down in her bed and feel somewhat safe. She had already started looking for other places to live as she felt the watchful eyes of her attacker still on her at all times in her current apartment. Still touching her. Violating her. Like she could actually feel him inside her.

One night, while fighting against the trembles and the paranoia as she slowly drifted to sleep, Toph heard the sound that sent every nerve to its last edge. A loud _thump!_ pounding the walls of her small room. She flew out of bed, sweat already forming, wondering where the sound had come from. The windows were closed. _Thump! _The door was locked. _Thump! _No one was here. _Thump!_ It was so loud. No matter where in the room she went it did not get louder or quieter. As if she was right next to the sound the entire time.

_Thump Thump!_

It was only after checking every corner and crevice of her apartment that she stopped to listen to the sound closely and realized that it was not coming from somewhere in her apartment. The source was her. The sound was coming from within Toph's own body. So loud and impending, making Toph's heart race, and it was at this moment that she picked up on the similarities between this sound of her heart and the loud thumping coming from within her.

The sound was a heartbeat.

_It has to be my own heart. It has to be mine. It has to._

She listened closely and noticed the delay in the sounds. Two sets of beats, out of phase. Two beats, different frequencies. Two beats. Two hearts in one, single body.

"I have…a baby inside me," she told Sokka a few days later. "I can feel it. I can feel its heartbeat."

Sokka was expecting something like this to happen. The future was unpredictable now, and he swore he would be by her side through it. Toph had been thrown from her platform of stability, and now she was carrying another life inside her, a life she would have to care for at all times, that would need her constant attention and love and support and would change the course of the rest of her life.

He helped her in every way he could, but at first it seemed to him like the help was doing nothing. Toph was not herself. She had lost her confidence, her strength, her sanity. For a few weeks, the world scared her, it was evil and she felt trapped. Trapped and confused and angry. Her life was a mess, and now she was going to bring this new person unwillingly into that mess. A new person who would have to live through Toph's horrible mistakes and downfalls. Toph admitted to Sokka several weeks later that she was in trouble. That she was thinking terrible things that were horrifying to her but she could not stop them.

Toph had thoughts of killing the unborn child. She had even held a knife up against her now slightly-bulging stomach. Feeling it would be better. Asking herself what the big deal was. The child did not know, it was not alive or conscious yet. Knowing the misery this child would have to endure because of Toph. The child who would realize the truth of her origins, that she was not intended to be created by her own mother, that she was not wanted. What does that do to a child? What purpose in life does a child feel they have after that. None? Would this life feel empty and purposeless? Meaningless? How does one resolve that? By wanting that life to end, perhaps? Toph didn't know, and she did not want to find out, but her hand refused to go along with her thoughts. It refused to perform the action. She willingly held herself back from any attempt to murder the child. Was it murder? Was it mercy? Toph did not know the answers, or even if she should. She just could not do it, and the heartbeat continued, pounding away, such a strong heartbeat, her eardrums hardened and callused from sensing the loud thumping every second of the day.

The baby grew. The heartbeats became more distinct from Toph's own. Like a clock, ticking away with every passing second leading up to the completion of this child. But to Toph, it was just a growing weight. A growing pain. A growing sense of dread. Because of her blindness, her heightened remaining senses allowed her to feel this child within her more than the average pregnant woman. She could feel and 'see' every inch of this child. Its mouth. Its eyes. Its arms and legs. She felt it feed off of her, she felt it move even the slightest inch. They were connected, not only in the obvious physical way, but she felt even closer to it, like she could speak to it and listen to its thoughts. She learned about and really knew this child. Like a ghost, a spirit, always following her, listening to her and haunting her. Giving nothing to Toph but the endless feeling of dread and pain. Pain as this child was the embodiment of Toph's downfall. Dread for the day it would see the light of this world, when it would be happy and joyful, live its life feeling as though it belonged only to realize one day that it had no reason to exist. Had no purpose. It was just a byproduct of evil. What would it do? How would it live? What would it become?

No...not _it_, what would _she _become?

"She…A girl." It was a girl. Toph knew it. She knew the baby. A girl. It seemed like a real person to her now.

Sokka was stunned when he heard the news of the sex, but was even more stunned to see that Toph seemed to tell him this news with a trace of excitement in her voice. A glint of happiness, of wonder and awe that she was carrying a life whose heart was beating with such strength inside her. Its kicks were powerful. Rock hard.

Toph's excitement grew. She had taken a maternity leave from her work as she prepared for the birth of her new child. Over the months, the feelings of dread that the child once represented seemed to melt away. Smothered out as if beaten down and replaced by something else. Something Toph would have never predicted to happen. Something unlocked within her in all of this chaos. Maternal instincts, mixing with her excitement and leading inevitably to love.

Love.

"Yes," she told the construction worker. "This is the property I have purchased. This is where I want you to build the house. My friend should've given you the blueprints for the home, right?" the man nodded and said nothing. Toph could not see this, but she just continued. "The land is on the other side of the bridge over Yue Bay. We have a lot of it, so I can train my girl here to earthbend. I can already feel that she is one," Toph said, unable to help herself from telling people of her expected child. Proud to become a mother. She needed a new place to live. She needed to escape the city and the feelings she had all those months ago. Out in the more rural areas just outside the city over the water, Toph purchased land on which to build a small home where she would live and raise her daughter. Within walking, or rather boating, distance from her good friend, Aang on Air Temple Island, and not far from Sokka. After hearing the news, Aang had offered his hand to help Toph as well, having experience with three kids of his own. Both he and Sokka would accompany Toph as she prepared, the building of her new home being one of these meetings in which they were involved.

The builder said very little, and whatever he did was muffled that Sokka and Aang continuously asked him to repeat himself. Sokka remembered the way the man's green eyes glowed, and how sloppy his handwriting had been. He also noticed the man always wore gloves, even when he wasn't working with his hands. It worried him, he wanted Toph to have an easy time during her pregnancy and didn't want any snags like an unreliable construction company. Within another few months, however, the builder and his team proved to be very competent as he raised the small house as Toph had asked with nothing less than perfection, at least from the outside. But as Toph ran her analysis on the finished product, her now unstable hormonal activity was becoming very evident.

Toph stepped into the home. "It's hollow," she said angrily. "Why is it so hollow? There is so much space between the walls?"

"That is normal," the builder said, very quietly and in a voice that sounded as though he was sick. "All houses are like this."

Toph knocked on the walls. "All houses!? This hollow?"

"Yes. Have you ever…"

"You're right. Okay. You are the smart one, hmm. I like it. I am sorry. Really. I like it. Thank you, sir. I don't even know your name."

"Company name is all you have to know. Have a nice day, ma'am."

It would indeed be a nice day, but also a tough one, and night at that, for that night Toph gave birth to the child she had once dreaded having for so long but now could not be happier to finally meet. Katara and a few of the acolytes as well as Sokka and Aang had come to help the chief deliver the baby safely. And, of course, they were all eager to meet the newest member of the family.

"Toph, she is beautiful," Katara said, holding the new born in her hands. "Would you like to meet her?"

"More than anything."

It felt strange to hold the child in her arms after getting to know her so well while she was in her stomach. Upon contact, the horrible memories flooded Toph's mind. The memories of the awful smell the day this child was conceived. The feeling of the child' skin, just like the inescapable feeling of the hands touching every part of her body. Violated. Disturbed. Disgusting. She almost felt them all over her again, but then suddenly it was a different hand now touching her. A gentle one. A happy one, happy to finally see her mother.

The baby reached for Toph's face; she knew exactly where it was, and she knew that this woman holding her was the most important thing in her infant life now. And she smiled at Toph so big that even the blind earthbender could tell she was smiling.

"She can see," Toph said in wonder. In joy and relief that her baby had at least escaped this misfortune that Toph had struggled to learn to live with as a young girl. She heard the baby breathe, at peace, and the horrifying memories were suppressed. It was tough. Holding this child reminded her of that day in her old apartment, of that horrible nightmare, but at the same time, holding this child made her unbelievably happy, and ashamed that she tried to prevent the child from being born. She would make it up to this child. Just like her city, Toph would protect her, guide her through life the best she could, love her. Love her forever.

"Lin. Her name is Lin. And I will love her. My little seeing earthbender."


	10. Sokka (text): The Resting Place

_Piece (continued)_

-Sokka (in text) Pt. 2: The Resting Place-

Forty-nine years prior.

Lin was born.

Toph was thirty-two.

It was not long before Lin was able to show that she was truly an earthbender like her mother. The simple act of moving a rock felt like child's play to the little girl, but Toph was amazed by it. This thing, this girl, she created her, and she was so powerful.

As more years passed, Lin grew, learned to talk and began making friends, Aang's youngest son, Tenzin, being her closest one. And soon, her only one, as she felt so comfortable and safe and happy around him. And he felt the same with her. Toph was also happy whenever she was around her daughter. Her smiling daughter. Lin was always smiling. So happy and energetic. Tough and apparently, after starting school, naturally smart as well. And she loved to laugh, especially with Tenzin. It never got old to Toph, hearing her daughter laugh, hearing her have fun.

As time wore on, things began to change for the Beifongs. Lin was eight. Toph was forty. Outside the house, beyond the line marking the Beifong property, the grass turned to gravel as factories and smokestacks began to appear, indicating the beginnings of a massive industrial makeover for the area. Clad in her Police Department armor, Toph Beifong returned from the courthouse downtown, shaken after having her blood bent by the terror that was Yakone. Tired and reminded of the horrors that one can find behind the many dark corners of the young city just across the water, but relieved that the man was finally behind bars, shed of his dangerous ability thanks to the Avatar. And happy to know that her daughter was safe from yet another threat, but there were still many more out there, including that one, the one she could never let slip from her memory, the one she had long since given up her attempts to find.

"Mom! You're home! Look, I got you this by the water when I was with Aunt Katara today! It's a shell," Lin yelled.

"Oh, it's beautiful, dearest. It looks so pretty." Toph said, sitting at the kitchen table, nearly falling asleep.

"You didn't even feel it! You have no idea what it looks like."

Toph giggled to herself. It brightened her up. She never fooled her daughter with that one. She picked up the shell. "Wow. This is nice. Do you want to put it somewhere?"

"You bet I do! I'll put it next to the rock I found yesterday."

"Yeah, you might want to stop collecting so much stuff, Lin. You are running out of room to put them all. This is a small house."

"Don't worry. I found a ton of space behind this wall!" Lin said.

"Huh? What wall?"

Toph followed Lin and learned that behind one of the walls there was enough space for a closet. Maybe even bigger than that. Lin had moved the floorboards to gain access to the space by going underneath the house, and let her mother come down with her. It had a few rocks, shells, leaves…other things Lin had brought in over the last few weeks.

"This is weird," Toph said, her feet feeling the ground in the crawlspace. "I never noticed this. When did you find this?"

Lin looked at her feet, thinking she was in trouble. "Uhm, the week before last, I think?"

"Well, let's just keep the floorboards where they are supposed to be, okay, honey? No more moving them."

"Ok."

"Did you have a fun time with Aunt Katara and your cousin Kya and Tenzin today?"

"Yes! Kya did my hair. She keeps telling me how pretty and long it is."

"That is nice of her. You do have very good hair. Thanks to me, that is."

"Mom, Uncle Aang isn't my _actual_ uncle, right? Right, mom?"

"No he isn't. He's a close family friend, but he and I aren't related. Why?"

"Hehe, that would have made me and Tenzin _real_ cousins. Like, family. Eww." Lin said, blushing. Toph felt her daughter's heart race, reminding her of her pregnant months hearing that loud thumping noise of Lin's heart. Although she always wanted to, even the feeling of Lin's skin when Toph hugged her brought back traces of those horrible memories. Almost every time, she had to suppress it, but she was getting better at it. She hugged her daughter often when Lin was still a young girl. Toph loved it.

The world felt so quiet when Lin was gone. Empty. Toph even missed the constant sound of the heartbeat blasting in her ears. The heart that would always beat on, against every struggle and conflict and evil. Lin's heart was strong, Toph knew that. But how strong? Could she make it stronger? Could Toph be sure that her daughter would be safe as a young girl? What about as a young adult? The city was evil sometimes, Toph knew that better than anyone. She had just gone face to face with one of its darkest forces, a man who could control other humans with nothing more than his mind. What if there were more? What if they came for Toph's family?

What if something like that happened again? Happened to Lin?

Years earlier, after Lin moved her first rock, Toph began giving her lessons in earthbending, and then soon, metalbending. To ensure her daughter would be safe in the city. To ensure that she would be able to defend herself in case anything happened. She enjoyed teaching her daughter, watching her grow and learn and smile when she did something right. But as she grew up, as time passed and Toph became more worried about Lin's safety, knowing what kind of horrible things could happen to her and wanting Lin to experience nothing like what Toph had to go through, the lessons became tougher. Toph had sworn to herself to set a line between mother and master, but now it was becoming blurry. Lin's training and her parenting were nearly indistinguishable. And as Lin struggled to keep up with her mother's demands, pushing through the pain of more difficult training regimes, her attitude began to change from the happy, carefree, adventurous girl.

Soon, Lin's respite from the daily grind of school and earthbending training came in the form of the boy named Tenzin. As they grew, the two friends developed a much stronger relationship than mere friends which instilled a desire within them to be with each other as often as possible. Toph knew that Tenzin would sneak in at night to see the girl he had developed a crush on, but the act just disgusted Toph. She had no hatred or doubt for Tenzin, but everything he did, his eyes for Lin, sneaking through her window, his light feet that were unnoticeable to Toph's heightened senses unless he goofed up, it just reminded her of that day. The day that someone had come through her window, had taken advantage of Toph while she was vulnerable, so quiet she could not hear, unable to break free of her imprisonment in her sleep while it all went down. Tenzin meant no harm, she knew that, but the acts seemed so related, and she did not want to associate the nice, loving airbender with the horrible man who had gotten past Toph's defenses. Lin reacted to her mother's disapproval by sneaking out, adding to Toph's worry. Making her think terrible thoughts about her daughter being trouble, of someone easily pretending to be Tenzin and coming through her window and taking her for himself because he knew he could.

Toph was sickened by these thoughts, and in reaction to them, intensified her training lessons, and hardened her attitude toward her growing daughter with hopes to strengthen the girl. They would train on the acres of dirt and grass owned by Toph. The area continued to undergo a change in appearance, though. Companies were purchasing nearby land and building factories on them, blocking the sunlight with a layer of smog, disrupting the beautiful natural scenery and replacing it with the view of cold metal and lifeless machines. They offered Toph a good deal of money for the property around her house, but she refused repeatedly, using that land to train Lin, who was growing stronger every day.

Lin soon learned, after days of gruesome training, to see with her feet, something Toph demanded Lin learn before she could go out on her own. She did, and she became so much stronger that she was almost matching the strength of her mother, but the fear in Toph never fled. The blind earthbender was never satisfied, her paranoia never calmed, but in Lin's mind, she believed that Toph was just not satisfied with her performance. In Lin's mind, her mother thought Lin was a failure. Lin would hint at these beliefs as a young girl to Sokka, as she brushed dirt out her hair on the front steps of her house when he would come to see the family.

Sokka knew Toph would be a harsh teacher, but he did not expect something like this would happen. That the stress and fear Toph possessed would manifest in the form of an extremely rigorous and demanding earthbending master. And that these reasons differed from the reasons that Lin held to be true in regards to this difficult training regime. Toph knew it was wrong, but she could not stop. She was more than proud of her daughter, but she could never put her fears aside, could never give positive reinforcement and potentially let her daughter become over-confident enough to let her guard down like Toph did, and get hurt. So in that way, Toph was not satisfied with her daughter's training. She would never be. Not because she thought her daughter was weak and helpless, something she definitely did not believe, but because Toph could not accept that there was still the possibility, there was still at least one person in the world, that would be able to lay a single hand on her daughter in order to hurt her.

But eventually, Toph had less control over Lin. Her daughter was growing older, more independent. In her late teens, Lin was romantically involved with Tenzin, and the young earthbender tried to believe that she was truly happy as she found her place in society with another person to love, but Toph could see the effects of her training in her daughter. Lin had become hardened, abrasive, and she had constructed more walls around herself, almost as a shock to Sokka who expected the happy, joyful little girl he had once babysat and fed and laughed with. Instead, Lin grew moody, switching between different emotions, all of them mostly negative, until they started tending toward a neutral level. Like feeling nothing. Her social life was nonexistent, also something that one would not have anticipated just from knowing the girl Lin used to be. She had only one friend, Tenzin: her boyfriend, who she loved dearly.

"I don't feel the need for more friends," Lin said to Sokka. "I don't want liabilities." To Lin, more friends were just more people who would potentially be dissatisfied with her, just like she thought her mother was. More people who would train her and point out inadequacies.

To make her mother happy and to fulfill what she said she believed she had to do, Lin joined the police force. Although Toph expected her fears to sky-rocket, she was surprised to find they did not. The danger of Lin being in the force did not scare her, it was almost calming actually. And she was proud, too. She even showed it a little, easing the tension in the relationship with her daughter. She was proud her daughter had followed her mother. Proud she had become so strong and powerful. Her heart still pounding away. Toph could always be with her daughter now.

The fear in Toph for her daughter's safety started to diminish, but it was not long until one simple act of violence, and one simple scar, brought it all back. And more. A whole lot more. Old feelings buried by Toph long ago. Sokka watched as Toph felt the scar on her daughter's face hours after the incident had occurred. It was on the face. It was only two streaks. But she was positive. She knew, absolutely, that it was the same mark.

_Indra._

Now, the dread and horror and fear was sealed into Toph's life from this point onward. She could no longer eradicate the feelings of disgust for herself. The feelings of failure. And now her daughter was pulled into this. Into her mistake. Lin would have to pay for what Toph had done. He was coming for her. Was he? Where had he been hiding? Whatever the answer, Toph regretted that she had never found the man, and now Lin, the one she loved more than anything in the world, was in trouble.

The remainder of Toph's life was ruled by this fear, once again straining the relationship with her daughter. Fits of anger and arguments erupting between the two women. Toph could do no more with her life than work, work to sweep every tainted individual off the streets. Lin sunk further away from her old self, from emotion and happiness and feeling like an actual person. She felt like a machine, constantly training under her mother, constantly working under her mother's rule. Soon, her mother was not even telling her to do anything. She was no longer her master or her boss or her dictator, but her demands were tattooed inside Lin's head. Became her framework for her existence. Toph saw it, but couldn't do anything about it. She knew she was losing her daughter, but soon that didn't matter, because soon she was also losing herself.

Lin grew old in appearance quickly, as did Toph. Lin's first gray hair appeared in her mid twenties. The women tried to ignore their body's haste in aging, attributing it to their stress from work and from being around each other. Both women had long since moved out of the house Toph had built for her by now, although the Beifongs still owned the land. Lin moved into the city, near the Headquarters where she worked tirelessly, just like her mother. Work, bringing justice to the city, growing older, that was all they knew anymore. That was the only thing they _could do_ anymore. But eventually, Toph could not even do that.

At the age of twenty-five, Lin had already been taking more and more of her mother's duties as Toph began to fall ill. Passing out during missions and feeling too sick to come to work several days of the week. Toph was fifty-seven. Although Lin had her differences with her mother, she never felt more worried than when she saw that Toph was becoming extremely sick, to the point where she had to remain bedridden days in a row. Hardly able to walk or fight. Toph looked at least fifteen years older than her actual age. She was always stressed about her job, about Lin, about her life, and this was what Lin believed to be the cause of her mother's illness.

It was at this age, fifty-seven, that Toph was convinced by her daughter to retire from the force. After her success in doing this, Lin took a short leave to transport her mother out of the city, back to the small house with all of its acres, acres of land now in the middle of arrays of loud factories constantly churning out new products. She hadn't been back to their old dwelling place in nine years. Toph could do nothing more after a few months other than eat and sleep as Lin worked part-time hours at the station carrying out Toph's old duties in order to make enough money to fulfill her other responsibility of caring for her dying mother. The factory owners nearby would stop by the house often while Lin was looking after of Toph, making generous offers for the land. Feeling strained for money, Lin agreed to sell a large portion of the land, as long as they did not build on the house.

The factories rose, ganging up on the small home, and Lin used the money wisely, keeping the house stocked with enough food to sustain her mother, who was growing sicker by the day. Additionally, she used the money to import medicine from well-known apothecaries across the world.

None had worked. Toph's condition was unable to be classified, and as doctors attempted, Toph continued to grow ill. First it was coughing blood, then she could no longer support herself on her feet for even a few seconds, then her arms felt heavy. She passed the time metal bending spoons from her bed and rocking chair, but soon found this to be a challenge, which sent her morale and self-esteem plummeting. Lin was flustered as she gradually stepped into the role of the new Chief with all of its responsibilities and dangers while stopping by the house everyday to care for her mother, unable to turn her back on the woman who sacrificed everything for Lin's well-being. But Toph just grew weaker, and one day, the worst of it came in a form that caught Lin so off-guard.

Toph's memory was fading. Starting with just short-term memory loss which made the woman's daily tasks much more difficult and confusing, then graduating to long-term loss, as if her mind was being wiped starting with the most recent events and stretching back through her life. Lin arrived at her mother's house to find that Toph no longer even recognized her any more.

"You are not my daughter. Who are you? I want to see my daughter. I want to see Lin."

Toph rocked back and forth in her chair as Lin sat across from her on the bed, proceeding through her daily routine of check-ups.

"Mother," Lin said, thinking nothing of it at first. "It _is_ me. It's Lin. I'm here like I always am, every day, to see how you are doing. Do you need anything? I'm making food right now."

But Toph was confused and sad. She shook her head and refused to believe it was true. Nothing about Lin seemed familiar to the woman anymore. "No, leave my house at once, impostor. You are not Lin. Why doesn't she come see me? Does she really hate me so? Even as I am dying? I suppose…I deserve her negative feelings for what I did to her. For the way I failed to be a mother to her. I was just so scared for her. I only did the best I could, and now I see that it was not good enough. I did not think it would be this bad. I did not think I fell so low in her eyes. I did not realize she hated me this much to not even visit me in my last years."

Lin was destroyed by her mother's words. She could not even move or speak. The heart which Lin had forgotten she had for so many years was beginning to tear apart. It had been two years since Toph became ill and retired to this house, and each day of those years Lin was by her mother's side. But Toph had lost this memory, and as time passed, day by day, her mother asked to see Lin, the daughter she hadn't remembered seeing in so long, the daughter that, to Toph, despised her and wouldn't even come to say goodbye, who had been gone for years, and Lin could do nothing but try to convince Toph that she _was_ her daughter, and that she had always been there. It proved futile, but even after another year, each time Lin visited was like a stab to that heart. It was slowly torn to bits and pieces, leaving nothing behind in the aftermath. And soon, the woman she was always trying to make proud forgot that she even had a daughter.

"I do not know what you mean. Who are you?"

"It's me, mom. It is Lin."

"I do not know anyone by that name. I do not even have a daughter."

Lin could not handle it anymore. Hearing her mother speak like this, her memory of Lin erased, it all made Lin feel as if she did not exist, never existed. Just some purposeless body travelling through space, no direction or place in this world now that the one who brought her into it refused to believe she had ever done so. Lin knew her mother would remember if she felt her. She raised Toph's hand and put it to her face. Tears in her eyes, she asked if her mother really did not remember.

"Please! Please, mother, just feel it. Just see me. I know you remember. I know you do. Please, just remember, I've always been here."

The look on Toph's face, the fear she had the day Lin received her scars, the disgust that Toph had for herself returning, the dirty feelings of that man's hands all over her, waking up to realize that it was no nightmare. All filling her, all at once. It was all she remembered now as she felt Lin's face.

"I can feel him. I can feel his hands. I can feel his face. You are him, aren't you. You are Indra."

Lin did not understand, but knew it was hopeless. The last of her emotions had been poured out in this final attempt. She did not speak to her mother during her next visit, and a few days later, Toph's time was up. Lin nearly felt nothing at the sight of her mother, lying in her bed, never to wake again. Her sadness, her emotions, they had been used up, slowly diminishing over the last few years until they were completely gone. She felt no regret, no pain, only the sense of duty, to set up the funeral, to properly bury her mother, and move on with her life as the Chief of Police.

Lin was twenty-eight. Toph was sixty at her time of death.

The only pain Lin felt was over not feeling any pain. The only thing that saddened her was that she was not sad. She could only describe it as feeling...inhuman.


	11. Lin (text): Catching the Scent

_Piece_

-Lin (in text): Catching the Scent-

"She told you all this?" Lin asked.

Sokka, now in his late years, an old man, nodded slowly. "She told me enough. Enough for me to connect the dots. Enough for me to write her diary."

It had been a few days since it happened. Since the death of the great Chief Toph Beifong. That was it. That was the end of her. Toph's body lied in the bed, looking as if she was asleep, but Lin knew there was no life in it. Toph was long gone.

Lin sighed. This moment seemed overdue. She was not sad. She did not feel like crying or dumping her sorrows. She had no sorrows. She was unable to experience any kind of negative reaction. Lin did not look at her mother with regret or gloom. She just looked at her, feeling nothing, thinking about nothing except for what to do with her. What to do about a funeral, a burial. How to properly fill in the open slot of Chief of Police now that her mother no longer held that title. Soon her mind wandered back further. Thinking back on the woman Toph once was. Thinking back on their relationship, mother and daughter, what it used to be, and what it become, or rather deteriorated into.

"Well, now what?" she had asked herself. Lin had brought a tray of food for her mother that afternoon, as she usually did. She walked back to the kitchen with the soup she had made and started to eat it. Carrots were soft. Broth was hot. Tasted good. She finished quickly and washed the dishes out when she heard a loud creak, much louder than the usual sound of the house settling. Like something or someone moving in the house. Lin was unsure if that was normal and she just didn't notice it over the last few years because the house was always so busy with her taking care of Toph. Lin never felt she had the time to look through the house, but now it seemed like she had an eternity. She could saunter slowly through it without feeling rushed and actually look at everything around her.

Lin walked toward where the loud creek had sounded. It was from a hallway which seemed much longer and eerie when she was a young girl. This was where she would store her treasures. Her mother had discovered the stash of random objects that Lin had taken from the outside world: rocks, clumps of dirt, a leaf, a shell. The stash that Lin kept in the crawlspace behind the walls in this hallway. Toph was always complaining to herself that the house had wide, hollow spaces between the walls and rooms. Lin couldn't remember which stood before the empty space where she had once stored her findings.

Standing there, Lin realized how strange the hallway was. It did not lead anywhere. It really did not have a purpose. At the end of it was a window, looking out the side of the house, which used to be bright in the morning from the sunrise but now was just facing the side of a building. The strange thing was that there were no rooms at the end of it. All the bedrooms were on the other side of the house. There was a closet right at the front of the hallway, but no doors or anything toward the end. Who would make a hallway like this? Nevertheless, Lin removed her shoe and tapped her feet. She had not done this in a while, not in the house at least. She tapped her feet and saw every room as well as the open spaces between them, but the vision was rather blurry due to her indirect contact with the earth. But she saw something, a large object, and it was moving quickly away from the house. Quickly, scared. Like an animal or a big bug. Vermin underneath her mother's home.

"Dammit." Lin cursed. Having detected the right wall that led to the crawlspace with her earthbending, she knelt down and removed the floorboards beneath her and peered underneath the house, expecting to see a nest of disgusting creatures that had taken shelter there. But it was an unexpected sight. There were no animals, but she still heard the movement of something large running away. Scaring it off. _Good riddance. Probably an elephant rat or something._

What she did find in the crawlspace was not _her_ old collectibles, but rather her mother's. And they were not stones and other useless objects, it was a collection of documents. A few photographs of Toph with important people. A few case files her mother had worked on. Awards she had won. Her mother's life in a series of transcripts. Her trophy room, her memories, cases, notes, and the crown jewel of them all: her diary.

_She told me these were long gone. Why would she lie to me about this?_

Toph had a diary. What secrets rested within them? Everything Lin could ever want to know? The key to shining light on her mother that she was suddenly realizing she may not have known well at all? Lin lingered, staring at the pile of artifacts, wondering what to do with them. Brushing her hand over them, she found that they had accumulated no dust over the years. Like they had been in motion recently. Had Toph put them here? Impossible, the woman could barely support herself on her feet.

Above the diary, Lin came across an old mirror. She looked at herself, trying to believe that she was only nearing her thirties as she actually was, but her face looked as if she was half a decade beyond that. Strands of gray slowly beginning to mix in with her natural black. She saw herself in the mirror, touched her face to feel the beginnings of the wrinkles, astonished that they were real. She did not really know what Toph had looked like in her younger years. In her late twenties. Did she look like her? Any resemblance? Or did she look like her father, the man she had never known. She put the sight of herself out of her mind.

_No more mirrors._

As she looked away and started for the diary, Lin heard the faint sound of a siren slowly getting louder. It stopped her, wondering if it was coming for the house, then suddenly there was a knock on the door. It was loud and sounded urgent. A yell coming through it, asking for Lin to answer immediately.

"Ma'am," the man at the door said. It was a paramedic from the hospital. They had been called to the house after a frantic notification that there had been a death that day. An ambulance behind him, a product, no doubt, of one of the factories surrounding the small house. Lin was caught off guard, unaware as to how the hospital already knew of the death, and how they had arrived within the hour after it had happened. Someone would have had to call them beforehand, right after Lin had found Toph's body in order for them to be here by now, and no one else knew about Toph's death, yet. It had just happened. As the paramedics carefully transported Toph's body from her bed and into the ambulance, Lin could only stand by and wrestle with her confusion for an explanation, until her attention was completely captured by a silhouette down the street, a shadow cast from behind by the setting sun and a dimly lit streetlight. A tall figure, veiled in darkness, but Lin could tell this was a person, and he was looking right at her. To his left, there was a payphone. The stare from this mysterious figure felt ominous to Lin, and the whole situation temporarily placed her in a dream-like state which she did not snap out of until she realized she had forgotten about her mother's diary as she drove behind the ambulance, following her mother's body to the hospital, or wherever, to prepare it for the funeral. Whatever had just happened, the ambulance, the man in the distance, it had completely consumed her thoughts, and she vowed that she would have to return to the house after this ordeal had been settled to find that diary.

"Dammit, I'll go back for it tomorrow." Lin failed to do this the next day. She was busy making arrangements for the funeral. As she traversed the long hallways of the hospital and policedepartment headquarters, talking with doctors and organizers and officers and council members, Lin constantly felt watched, felt the stare, the same stare and a trace of the sensation she had experienced when she saw the shadow of the man down the street from her house. Lin asked herself why he was involved, why he was even there and if he was the one that called the ambulance to come for Toph. Although she had never seen the man's face or heard his voice, she saw him on so many people, heard his voice distinctly in the midst of loud conversation. She just knew they belonged to him. But it was never reachable. He was the man at the end of the long hallway, behind locked doors, gone by the time she got there, never sure if it was him. His voice carried itself over crowds of people and through walls to Lin's ears, and she tried to trace it back, to follow the voice to its source, but it had always evaded. The sound of the man, whoever he was, she would be completely captivated after detecting his presence near her proximity, following the scent, knowing that he had just been in the spot she had been standing. Waiting for her to try and find him.

It was a few days before Lin would feel this way again, and it was during Toph's funeral, when she felt his eyes from every window of every building in the city, heard his voice from bystanders on the street, pushing his way through to the front, getting a better view of the procession. The one man towering over everyone in the crowd, but as Lin approached him, approached the place in the crowd she was sure he had taken, he was nowhere to be found.

The day continued.

Toph wasn't shy about her wishes for a big procession in her honor, and Lin would follow those wishes exactly as her mother wanted. The entire force marched through the streets of Republic City. Everything put aside for the memorial of the woman who so fearlessly kept those streets free of the darkest forces of evil, as Toph sometimes put it. The ornate casket was carried for all to see.

Before the Police Headquarters, the memorial commenced. Lin sat with Sokka on one side and Tenzin on the other. They did not hold hands, either one. Both men looked upset, a sharp contrast to the woman between them. Lin crossed her legs and folded her arms as she watched the event. As she listened to politicians and other police officers and public officials talk about how great her mother was and how she represented all that was good. Lin had heard it all before. It bored her, but she saw the awe, the sadness, the appreciation for this woman in the eyes of everyone around her, things that should have been possessed by Lin, but she continued to feel nothing. It was for this reason that she refused to speak or say anything about her mother during the funeral. It was not hard feelings. It was not bitterness or hatred or a grudge. Lin feared she would forget the sensitivity of the event and may break whatever glass image of Toph these people believed in simply by mentioning any single thing that may be viewed as a fault in the late Chief's life. And so, she remained silent, and later on, merely observed as people cried over her mother as the casket descended six feet into the ground in the graveyards beyond the city.

"How are you feeling, Lin?" Sokka asked as the grave was filled. It was a short moment when the two were alone.

"I guess I am upset, but that is only because I am not upset. About anything. I don't know why. She was sick for a while. I guess I was ready."

"Even so," Sokka said. "No one is ever really ready when it comes to death."

"Maybe I am not human then," Lin said, attempting to make a joke, but the unchanging expression on her face forced the joke in a dark direction. Sokka asked about Toph's condition over the last few months of her life, and Lin explained as briefly as she could what had happened.

"She just forgot me. All of her memories of me just wiped out and all she could do when she touched my face for the last time was utter the name of some person she had once known. 'Indra.' That was it." Sokka was the only person she had told. Tenzin returned and put his arm on Lin's shoulder but only seemed to feel the cold metal of her uniform. She did not turn to look at him.

Many had not noticed that Lin was even there that day. Few would recognize her then. That she was even related to Toph in any way. She said nothing to the other guests, but she was the first to arrive at the event, and she was the last to leave.

Sitting before the grave with her mother's name on it, Lin was surprised that her mother did not want another gigantic statue of herself raised for all to see. Even though she was alone, she still felt foolish about what she was about to do. Speaking out loud to her dead mother, talking to a piece of engraved stone.

"Look, I'm not comfortable with this either, but maybe it is what we both need. I don't know if you can hear me wherever you are, in the Spirit World, or maybe just in the ground, but... You can't deny it, our relationship did kind of fall apart, you know? You yelled at me a lot, and you were never happy with me or anything I did. I don't know if that was just you or if it was actually something I was doing wrong, but I could have gotten along fine without all that. I guess I am to blame, too, for aggravating those situations, but you know, I am starting to think that all of that was never because of something like stress. I think that, maybe, my whole life it's been like there was this mirror in front of you so that when I looked at you, it was like I was only seeing the image of my mother that I formed in my own head. As if you never told _me_ about yourself, but rather every time I wanted to know you more, know you better, you just pushed it back at me so that it was only up to me, so that in order to figure you out I had to resort to knowing my own version of you better, the one inside my head, instead. So in the end, maybe I was just the daughter of someone who was not even real, who was completely different than the actual woman that raised me. My interpretation of who you were, at this stage in my life, I am not sure if that representation I had of you was completely true."

It was at this moment that Lin finally started to feel something about all of this, but it was not sadness, it was a realization. Realizing more and more with every passing second as she stared at the name written on the stone. 'Toph Beifong.' The mother of Lin, and the daughter of two people Lin had never met. The girl out of a past that Lin never learned much about other than the war hero stories. It occurred to her that Lin did not even really know her mother beyond the few memories she had growing up with her. Until the solution lit up before her.

_The diary!_

"Of course. I know you enough to know you would definitely keep something like that. How could you _not_ keep one, mother? Of course you needed a way to chronicle all of your life's greatest achievements. Surely they would mention something before my time," Lin spoke.

Lin drove back to the house at once, almost excited even. But Lin's hopes were drained when she arrived to find that her house had been the victim of an act of arson. A small fire had been set in the living room of the house and quickly expanded to several of the other rooms before the fire department reached it. Lin stood inside the torched house afterward, angry as she looked at the pile of ash that was once the documentation of her mother's life. The house maintained its interior structure pretty well except for the holes in the walls of the hallway. Holes where she could see into the crawlspaces, now empty. Someone had found the collection of Toph's and either stole it or burned it. Lin swept the ash into the closet but didn't even bother to board up the walls after she spent so much time doing the windows. She threw the remaining boards and hammer on the ground.

"Waste of time. There is no point in ever coming back here now." However, Lin had a faint inclination that this was not true. Although nothing was here anymore, the entire house now possessed a very unsettling mien which acted as a force toward Lin, wanting to push her away, but inevitably attracting her back, as she followed the scent, back to the source where she knew that man, that shadow, that face, that voice, was resting, waiting for her. She felt him here, still here or recently here. The one she always felt watching her, around every corner, just a few steps ahead of her, closing the door a second before she arrived, fading into the darkness while Lin watched from afar.

Lin sat in her motionless car, sulking, not knowing where to turn to next. Peeved at the most recent events which blocked her from learning more about her mother. She pouted.

"What the hell could Toph had written about, she couldn't even…"

Lin's nearly gasped for air. "She couldn't write!" Toph was blind. Her mother did not know how to write. Which means that someone would have had to write the diary for her. Even if it was gone, he would still know something about it. And Lin knew the man that Toph would trust to write it, or at least certain sections of it. At least one. Enough for her to start with.

Other than the few words she exchanged with Sokka at the funeral, Lin had not spent much time with the man in the last few years. It was a little upsetting. Lin never had a father, but when she tried to think of what the word meant, Sokka was one of the faces that would come to mind. He lived in a small apartment near the courthouse where he used to work as a council member. He retired and was growing old now. Lin arrived at his place to see an empty room except for a few packed bags and an old man sitting on a bed. He was sixty-four. His water tribe coat on, ready for the harsh weather of his homeland.

"You are leaving?" Lin asked. Sokka turned, not realizing Lin had walked in.

"Oh, Lin." He stood. "What a pleasure to see you today." Lin did not look like a pleasure to see that day. Sokka smiled, then looked around the room. "Yes, I am leaving Republic City. My time here is over, has been for a while. And soon my time on this planet will be over as well. Sorry to sound so morbid. I'm returning to the South Pole, hopefully to be with my sister for my last few years. It'll be nice to be home again."

"I see."

"It's been a few days. Are you feeling any different?"

"Not really. Just frustrated."

"With what?"

"My old house was set on fire last night. Didn't burn down, but torched the inside. Lot of stuff destroyed."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I didn't mind too much, it's just there were documents in there that my mother wrote. Like, information about her whole life, probably. I realized recently that I don't know much about her past and I wanted to find out. Maybe it would make me feel actual sadness over all of this. But the diary was burned up I think. Just a pile of ash now."

"I think I know why you have come here."

"You knew her well, Sokka. I have so many memories of you being around, taking care of me, speaking with her. She trusted you with everything. Surely, you must have had a hand in constructing that diary."

"She did not trust me with _everything_. Her work, many details of that sector in her life, was in the hands of someone else. And I know that many things happened in that life which affected her more than I can understand. She trusted me with personal things."

"That is good enough for me. Whatever she tried to keep a secret or omit telling me, I want to know. Just for my own fulfillment. I deserve to know."

"Yes, you absolutely do. The story is not a pretty one, though. I warn you."

"I think I can handle it," Lin said boldly.

"I think you can, too. Tell me, what has Toph told you about your father?"

"I only remember asking once before I dismissed the topic. She said he died while she was pregnant with me, but that had he been around to meet me he would have loved me as much as she did. As I grew up, I started realizing that this was just a fantasy, but I spoke no more of it. I don't really know anything about the man, if he is actually dead, if he was good. It wouldn't surprise me if she just made it up to protect me since I was just a girl when I asked. I can understand that. I guess."

Sokka sat on his bed. "Yes. Toph was not perfect, but then, none of us were. She made her mistakes, but she made them with good intentions. She did not know how to protect you from the evils of this world. I know she loved you. I will never forget the look in her eyes when she first met you. Terrified, but amazed at how beautiful you…"

"Sokka, cut the garbage."

"Right," Sokka said, distracted for a moment. "Well, like I said. She was not perfect. She tried to protect you because, you see, a long time ago Toph was the victim of an event which tore down every sense of security and any faith in others that Toph ever had. She was attacked by a mad man, a man who gave her more than bruises and cuts and the feeling of violation, but also implanted within her a fear of this world that would eventually replace her pride, and she would go through the rest of her life with little confidence in anything. Acting, though, as if she was the same woman she had always been. It was this fear that controlled her, drove her to protect you from the same evils that had gotten to her. So, yes, she lied, but she did so in order that you would be safe. That you would not be weighed down by the truth at such a young and vulnerable age. It seems like now, however, you have matured to the point where the truth could not really affect you."

"What truth?"

"That this evil man who had breached your mother's walls, the man who implanted this fear in her was responsible for the creation of something else. It was on the same night that Toph was the victim of this disgusting and horrible act that something beautiful was conceived in the aftermath: you."

Finally a reaction in her face. She raised her eyebrow. "My father was a rapist."

Sokka took a deep breath. Talking with this woman was so difficult to him. He began to explain the whole story. Lin hardly moved. Sokka started with the incident, arriving to find Toph after she had just awoken, the day she realized she was pregnant, and the house in which Lin was born. Sokka had been a prominent figure in Toph's life, and so she opened up to him, telling him her struggles, asking him to keep something, some kind of written document of these bits of her life. Before she died or forgot them all. These events would never be known to the world. To the city, Toph was the strong, unbreakable, unstoppable force that would forever protect them, never to succumb to the force of something stronger, for if she did, the fabric of society would tear apart, or so she believed. She told only few others and hid the proof of her faults away, making sure no one would see them except those that would understand: Sokka, Aang, Lin…

Lin's face did not change in the entirety of Sokka's story. The story of, well, how Lin came to exist and be here.

"She told you all this?" Lin asked.

Sokka, now in his late years, an old man, nodded slowly. "She told me enough. Enough for me to connect the dots. Enough for me to write her diary."

"That was quite enlightening. I am glad I got that cleared up. She ever find the guy that did it? My real father?"

"I...I don't know. The only times I knew of her police work was when it involved the council. Then we would work together, but otherwise she never discussed her life as the Chief with me. I can only say that I know for sure she looked for him. If she ever found him and did anything to him, I can't say. I have my theories, though. That he might still be out there. I don't have much to back that up except…I have only seen your mother exceptionally scared twice in her life. The first was the morning after she was attacked. The second was when she felt the scars on your face."

Lin felt the mark. The eternal mark of her failure. "These? These were just some maniac involved in a break-in. Got me off-guard."

"Did you ever see his face?"

_The face?_

"I thought we got him. Everyone involved was arrested."

"Maybe he wasn't involved. Maybe he was just there. I can't be sure, but I do know that your mother changed after feeling those scars. Toph was involved with a lot of police cases that never made it public, though. It could be one of a hundred explanations."

"Does the name 'Indra' have any relation to that?"

"I don't know."

"It was the last word I heard her say, and I remember her face. It was the same face she had when she felt my scars. The same fear you are talking about."

Sokka hesitated before speaking again. Lin looked as if she was getting a little worked up, but he concluded that maybe now was the best time to show her. Before anything else happened, now that she was older and would understand. He may not be around much longer. "Lin, there is something you should see. Up until now I thought of this as being too much for you, but from talking to you I can see you can deal with just about any news right now pretty well. The world has hardened you. The day your mother was attacked, there were photographs developing on Toph's table when I arrived. She concealed them before I had a chance to look. But as I was packing and going through my stuff recently, I found that I had an envelope with one of them inside it. It had my name. I only glanced at it, I feel I didn't have the right to look. She once told me not to, and I was loyal to her. But she is gone now, and I find no better person to possess it than you. I think you can handle whatever image is on this, even if it is gruesome, which I will warn you, it might be. It was taken that night. Toph was scared that it would be seen by the world, and that she would never be trusted to keep the streets safe. That people would stop respecting her, and her city would become chaotic."

Sokka pulled out a white envelope and handed it to Lin. It was astonishing. That Toph would keep herself from her own daughter just to protect her. Lin was slightly angry but couldn't help but wonder if she would be worse off if she knew all these things her whole life. That she was a product of the darkest evil. That she was unwanted. How would a young girl deal with that?

The envelope was light. It had but a single photo in it. Toph opened it in her car, now outside of Sokka's building having said her goodbyes for perhaps the last time. A single photo. A nice camera that was most likely propped up, timer set, one person in view in a small apartment: a girl, passed out, more than just asleep, Lin could tell. Out cold.

Toph. Had to be. She looked so young, hair was luscious and long and black but it was her. A bottle next to her bed with a wet paper towel. An odd-looking bottle, most likely holding dangerous chemicals, millions of warnings on the label. Warnings of death and wooziness if inhaled for too long. What nearly made Lin jump out of her seat was when she realized that there was a second figure in the photo. It was not easy to see, but she got the feeling of being watched as she looked at her mother in her bed. Hairs standing up, watched by those glassy green eyes on that smiling face slipping through the darkness next to Toph's bed. Staring straight at her, following her movements. A face. A distinct face.

A face. A face of the man who did it. Perfect. An identity. A suspect. A case.

As technology advanced in the last few decades, forensics procedures became more feasible, more sophisticated machinery for various purposes, one purpose being matching a face with another face already on file. It was time-consuming, but Lin felt obliged to spend the whole night matching faces. Using her own eyes as well as the bulky analyzers which picked out inherent features in a photograph of a face, extracting its template and returning probabilities of correct matches when compared with every other face on file. After hours of failure, driving Lin to the point where she would breach the top secret files despite the attention it might draw to her but hoping that this man had at least been on some sort of record, she found the closest match. It was such an obscure file. The crime report over five pages, written by a familiar name: Jin Guansang. The file packed away in the depths of the station's file room, hidden unless one really looked for it in the mess of ignored reports. The face alone was hardly enough to make her certain, but then she read the name:

_Indra (Devas Asura)._


	12. Memoir

-Memoir-

Manases was back in the presence of the cold machines endlessly and tirelessly working to fulfill their purpose to this city. The industrial district. Metal, livened by electricity, carrying out their only function without regard for anything else, knowing no end, only work.

He walked down the abandoned street hugged by darkness and eternally watched by artificial entities, heading for the house which belonged to the Chief and her late mother. The house which held within it buried secrets, secrets he needed to know. Secrets about its residents, its creation, and its burns. Its scars. At some point, half a century beforehand, this place was green with grass and vegetation and life. Vast and beautiful to observe. Slowly the life grayed and decayed into the scene before Manases now.

He felt less alone, now, knowing that there was at least one soul within a very small radius of him. One soul, as well as the ghosts of a mother and her daughter, left behind as the two people entered into a different world than the one they lived in when they resided in this house. One of the women, passing into death. The other into a darkness devoid of emotion and empathy and humanity. A lifeless vessel tirelessly working.

One soul remained here, though, a soul present in this world.

O-Ren. Soon, however, he may be lifting himself into another one, another plane of thought. Manases would have liked to catch the squatter before he did that.

"Well, the young reporter is back," the man said, once again dressed in his dirty button-down and blue blazer. Smoking a cigarette. He smiled. Manases gave him a condescending smile._ What was this guy doing as a cop_?

"May I come in again?"

"Sure. You got lucky. I am in a good mood, today. Plus, I like your face. Shows promise. A real go-getter. I like you."

"Oh, that's great," Manases said with little expression. He walked in and sat down, looking around the house, analyzing it more closely. Trying to figure out what secrets were sealed in the walls. It smelled like a charcoal grill that had been lit for years. The wooden walls about to snap, burned to its core.

"What can I help you with, captain?" O-Ren asked as he sat on the couch across from Manases.

"You're a cop. I saw you today."

"Why, yes. I am."

"You didn't tell me the first time I saw you."

"You didn't ask what I did. What would prompt me to tell you?"

Manases grunted, annoyed. "I was asking about the previous residents when I was here. You could have told me you were working at the same place as her and saved a lot of time."

O-Ren was confused. "Working at the same place as who?"

"As the Chief! Chief Beifong!? You said she allowed you to stay here, didn't she?" Manases was really annoyed. Was this man that high?

"Yeah, but, what are you talking about? She wasn't the previous resident. Her mother was just the one that had this house built."

"Are you telling me that someone else lived here before you, and it wasn't Lin or Toph?"

"Yeah, she said she's had squatters here before, I was just the first person she actually_ allowed_ to do it. So, to me, the one squatting here before was a previous resident, albeit an unwelcome one."

"So she knew about it? Who was the squatter before?"

"I don't know. I never met him. He has been long gone, since way before I came here. She told me that to make sure I was aware. She said this house has some weird architectural imperfections, like secret entrances that strangers and wild animals could use to get in. She had trouble with that a few years ago. I haven't had any. Lin refuses to come back here and fix the problems with this house. She says it's not fixable and she's made it clear to me she would never come around here again, so, I just leave it at that."

_Secret passages._

"You don't know anything about these passageways? Like where they are?"

O-Ren puffed at his cigarette and looked at Manases. The reporter started to consider that maybe this man was not on drugs at this moment. He spoke clearly and in an organized manner. O-Ren looked as if he had become aware of something he was saying, or rather, of the situation, of the person he was speaking with and the information he was giving. "I'm sorry my friend, I don't."

"Really?"

"Really." O-Ren scanned Manases, looking him over, a different eye for him than he had before. A suspicious eye. Like he suddenly recognized the young reporter from somewhere, or from something. "I think I am going to have to ask you to leave, now. It's getting late."

"May I have another look around?" Manases asked innocently.

"You may not," O-Ren said. "I fear I have made a huge mistake in allowing you here. If you return to these premises I will be forced to take action. You have been warned."

Manases was taken aback. This man who was so friendly a minute ago was now making threats. He was a cop. Did Manases say something to set this guy off? It occurred to him that O-Ren may have detected a style of speaking popular among those in Manases's line of work. Did O-Ren know who had sent him?

_You don't know anything about these passageways? Like where they are?_

Friendly, charismatic, to invoke friendship, win quick trust. Get the facts efficiently. Had he been caught? Was it time to resort to these measures?

As Manases walked to the front door, O-ren following behind him, seeing him out, his heart started to race. He tried to calm it, wondering if O-Ren was the kind of earthbender that would detect those things. The heart rate slowed gradually. He looked over to see O-Ren's police uniform on the ground, his supply of metal cables across the room, too far to reach in a pinch. Manases reached the threshold of the house and turned to say goodbye to O-Ren.

The squatter was mad. Holding back rage and anger for some reason. Manases could see it in his neck. Veins bulging out. "Well, I'll be going now." Bulging veins. Perfect

"And you won't be coming back."

The process was so much quicker and easier than Manases expected it. O-Ren was sleeping like a baby on the ground in the next instant. An empty syringe in the reporter's hands, the fluid all drained into that big, bulging vein in O-Ren's neck, the drug taking effect immediately.

_"Makes them sleep and forget. A blackout drug. Only use it when you need to, alright? Don't be going around knocking everyone out."_

Manases did need to use it. He had a few hours now while O-Ren was passed out, but when he woke up he wouldn't remember Manases stopping by at all. He wouldn't suspect anything.

_Secret Passages. Secret Tunnels._

Manases knew that O-Ren had said more than he wanted. That he probably realized eventually how easily Manases was extracting sensitive facts from him. That Lin probably would not like the conversation between the two.

_Secret Passage. Idiot. The dumbass literally told you that the last time you were here._

Manases walked to the long hallway, all boarded up with the damp, decaying wood. It tore away easily, and eventually Manases was looking at an entrance to a rather large crawlspace behind the walls of the house. It was strange to him that this hallway was here in the first place. It didn't really lead anywhere. The bedrooms were on the opposite side of the house. And the crawlspace was large, like it was either a ridiculous mistake to be here, or it was intended.

The inside was like a treasure chest to Manases. Stacks of files and pictures and notes, untouched for years, all surrounding a very old and useless pillow and chair. He crawled into the small space and began quickly sorting through the documents, throwing many of them behind him. His urgency increased when he realized he would have to board the walls back up again. He continued sorting through piles of useless papers.

Diagrams of the human brain. Unintelligible writing. Pictures of a couple young adults, four boys, standing in front of a newly opened bar. A sign read: The Gold Room. Transcripts of calls between an unknown person and one named 'professor'. Calls about some unidentified experiment, the professor apparently opposing it. A couple research papers by several noteworthy names: Ivan, Graft, Solomon, and of course, Devas. Devas Asura. The name which rung bells in Manases's head.

He skimmed through the research papers but could not understand a word, maybe because of its heightened and irrelevant information or that he was in such a hurry. Most of the stacks were just these research papers by these aforementioned men, little to do with the investigation, little to do with Lin or Toph until Manases came across a small box toward the back wall of the crawlspace. Simply labeled, 'Lin.' It was a collection of photos and newspaper clippings about the Chief. Most of it really common knowledge to anyone. Her many accomplishments as Chief, going back to the death of her mother, going further back to her first mission with the force. The oldest news story Manases found was of Lin's birth, it was about a sentence long, but it said that the birth took place in this house, which Manases did not know. Beneath the news stories, there were photographs of Lin, captured at odd angles, oddly candid, like she was not paying attention or she had no knowledge of the camera man's presence. Lin walking through a factory, which appeared to be taken by someone on a catwalk above her. Pictures of Lin sailing over to Air Temple Island, taken from someone on another boat, unnoticed by her. Lin on the clock tower, looking younger and younger in each one. This one taken from the top of another building. Even Lin standing in the kitchen of this house. She looked much younger, her hair longer and with more volume. The angle was from somewhere on the ground, the camera facing upwards.

Manases looked up to see the crack in the wall. Light shining through. An opening directly into the kitchen, looking upwards, the same scene that was in the image in his hands. Whoever took the picture was in this crawlspace. It was so easy for an eye to look through and see everything that was going on in the house. This was no hiding place for objects. This had been a hiding place for a person. A lair. Could it have been _his _lair?

Manases had to find out. He picked up a picture of Lin and Tenzin standing next to each other as late teens. A very old picture. One of the old cameras which took a few seconds to capture. Tenzin was circled in this picture. Someone had taken a red marker, circled him, and wrote Air Temple Island. It seemed as though the picture had fallen from a wall above the box. Several tacks stuck into the wall, a few pictures still being held up. One picture of Toph, another of Aang. Pictures of Sokka and Zuko were in the box. Pictures of them one could obtain easily almost anywhere, any store, any newspaper. Each with a random location written on them.

Courthouse.

Headquarters.

Finally, though, it would seem that Manases hit the jackpot. At the bottom of the box were a stack of papers crudely labeled, 'Lin's Diary.' A collection of Lin's thoughts, the key to her secret life, Manases striking gold. Without hesitation, he yanked the pages out of the box, took the picture of Lin and Tenzin, and boarded the walls back up with the same decaying wood that was there before, fleeing the scene before O-Ren would wake up to find him.

"I got it," Manases said into the pay phone near the docks overlooking Air Temple Island. "You'll never believe it. Her whole diary…Yes, it's like her whole life. She started writing it after her mother died…no, nothing sooner, but that is the thing, she writes about how she went to visit her old guardian, Sokka. Within the diary, Lin explains the story that he tells her when she went to see him. The whole thing. And get this: it's her whole life. The way she was born, her scars…all of it. I think I got it figured out…no it isn't done yet. I need to have a few more interviews. One more with the airbender. And one with her…yes, it'll be good. I'll have all the facts. Friday morning…no, I know I sound urgent. It's just…yes, okay, I'll talk to you soon."

Manases hung up the phone. He had read through almost all of the diary. It began, as he said, with the day Toph died, and explained Lin's trip to Sokka's, his story of her conception and birth and upbringing, the truth behind of her mother's disturbing past, and her discovery of the name 'Indra' in the secret files. Her discovery of her own father, and the crimes he had committed, and how her mother bravely detained him, but in the act of doing so, sealed a future that would ultimately be her downfall.

The diary ended abruptly with a short paragraph.

_I fear that these facts about my life can no longer be safe anywhere but within my own head. So, I am discontinuing this journal. I have suspicions that eyes other than my own have been reading these words, and that displeases me. Writing this was a way to help myself examine the life I lived, to search for emotions that I cannot seem to find, to reconnect with the person I used to be. But after finding pages and pages gone missing each day, I will write no more than this paragraph, so that whoever is after me, whoever is so interested in what has happened and in what will happen from here onward in my life, will know that they can't find it unless they come to me, or make me come to them._

Manases held the picture of Lin and Tenzin, Tenzin's body circled with red marker. It was chilling to see. Someone was obsessed with the girl. Lin. Someone _was_ so interested in her, stealing her diary entries, taking pictures of her, hiding underneath her own house taking shelter, watching the girl grow up from right under her own feet. Was it Indra? What happened to him? It now became less about finding out the truth behind Toph and Lin. Now, Manases was worried that the lives of these people were endangered by this lunatic. This man, Indra, who just seemed to disappear, seemed to be forgotten, but had a gruesome way, it seemed, of returning and letting others know he was still here. Still alive. An unstoppable force, continuously terrorizing those connected to him without any regard for them as human beings. Especially his own 'family.' And now, it was Lin.

Lin had once been close to Tenzin, and from the looks of this picture, this killer did not like it. Had he done something? Has he yet to do something? What was he planning? Was his hate prompted by their relationship? Manases did not know, but he needed to, and he would start by learning more about something he already touched upon with the airbender and would now eturn to. An event that he just knew was connected to all of this.

He sailed to Air Temple Island, hoping he was not too late.


	13. Tenzin: The Catalyst

_Piece _

-Tenzin: The Catalyst-

Thirteen years prior. Circa.

_Bang!_

The sound of a loud gunshot. The flash of gunpowder exploding and pushing a bullet extremely fast down the barrel of a hand-held pistol.

_Bang!_

The sound echoed throughout the room but could not be heard beyond the thick glass surrounding the new, makeshift shooting range underneath the Police Headquarters. Lin presided over the scene, watching her men practicing with the weapon, eager to see improvement in their performance and wrestling with the idea in her head whether or not to allow officers to carry guns as part of their arsenal. Although larger rifles had been around for a few decades, most of them owned illegally, the pistols that Lin was testing were fairly new and becoming popular because of their small size, ease of use, unlike the older bulkier pistols, these were able to fit in the palm of one's hand.

Tenzin was not aware of the shooting range's existence and stumbled upon it one day while trying to find his girlfriend in the windy corridors of the Headquarters building. He was eventually led to the room where Lin stood, observing one of her daily target practices with the pistols, something Tenzin did not know was occurring. Lin was looking better in terms of her injuries. The doctors told her to take weeks off a while ago, but she returned to work the day after her visit to the hospital, face covered in bruises, a limp in her walk, but it somehow did not affect her overall performance. She pushed through the pain.

"They are very powerful little weapons," Lin told him that day. She held one of the guns up for him to see. It had a slot for six bullets, revolving through each one as the guns was fired. On top was a small scope that could be removed if desired. "The bullets come out at around one thousand meters per second. And unlike those shotguns and the older pistols, the bullet stays in one piece, doesn't spread out, so from a far range one could be very accurate with this thing. Some of the more dangerous mobsters have been smuggling them, other people use 'em for hunting, but we made a deal with one manufacturer to get these shipped to us just for testing to see if they'd be good to take out on a mission."

"How long have you been doing this?" Tenzin asked, turning away the offer to hold the gun from Lin.

"About six months."

"And you, too, have been using these?"

"We haven't used them in action yet, no one has, but yes, I've practiced with them almost daily and I've gotten quite proficient with them. They are very dangerous, though. It doesn't even require much thinking or knowledge at all. Aim the gun and pull a trigger and someone is dead in an instant, a bullet lodged into their skulls. Raise the weapon and just let the device do the rest of the work for you. It can be easy to forget how mindless one can be to use it properly, and how deadly that mindless person would become if they lost control of themselves with one of these."

"You're damn right they are mindless machines. I can't believe you have been considering bringing these guns into the force, Lin! They are extremely lethal weapons that serve no purpose other than to kill."

"I'm not doing it for the purpose of killing, Tenzin. I'm doing it so my officers can protect themselves when they are in serious trouble. And who knows, might even have some nonbending citizens join the force one day if these prove to be as effective as metalbending. Could really see a lot of changes, just have to see how these do when actually taken out on a mission."

"You're not really going to do that, are you Lin? Tell me you won't."

"I just said I was going to. I am not sure when. No silly missions, though. A situation where I'll know the handguns would come in handy. Then we'll see what happens from there."

Tenzin was distraught. He did not like what he was hearing. He had always heard news of dangerous people getting their hands on guns, and he knew guns only as machines of death. For years he hoped that Lin was working to eradicate the weapon, but now he was seeing that she was actually adopting them. "Lin, why are you doing this? I never thought you would have..."

"Times are changing, Tenzin. I need to keep up."

"But is this really necessary?"

The men in the training room on the other side of the glass continued to fire, examining their progress on the targets and cheering when their shots were just inches from the bulls eye.

"Years ago I would not consider it," Lin said. "But now I am starting to think differently. I know you don't like it, Tenzin, but I am just trying to protect my officers. Protect them from danger that _does_ exist out there in that city, danger that, sometimes, can only be eradicated by killing it. I don't know if you've been reading the news lately, but there are people out there who just kill and destroy for money. People who have no restraint, no conscience, no concern for others, they just kill, and they do it well. My citizens are scared, Tenzin, scared of these terrorists constantly threatening the city. Terrorists who stop at nothing, who will kill any in their way, and in those cases, all we can resort to when they come for us, all we can do to protect ourselves is to kill them first. It is a dark truth, but it is _the_ truth. There are times when we have no choice, and the only way to save our own lives is to end another's. These guns would seriously make the ordeal a lot simpler, and I trust my men to use the weapon only when they absolutely have to, when no other option is available. When it is essential to their own protection. But, protecting my officers has another meaning as well. I realize that sometimes they have to resort to killing for the safety of others or of themselves, but doing that is never an easy thing to live with. Having the death of another person on your shoulders, no matter how evil that person may have been, that can really weigh on you and change you for the rest of your life. The matter is only made worse when the method of killing is so close and personal and traumatic. At least with guns, there is some separation, some distance, between you and the one you kill. At least there is this mechanical device, the middle man, between you, and although you load the gun and pull the trigger, this machine is what launches the bullet and performs the kill. It isn't much, but it is something. Some way to ease the horror that is killing another human being."

"You could just not kill other humansl, Lin. That is the best away to avoid the matter all-together."

"Look, Tenzin. We do the best we can, okay? I'm just trying to be realistic and look out for everyone. I know you don't like that, and I'm sorry," Lin said. Tenzin feared the day he would see people walking around armed with guns all the time for the purpose of killing attackers or innocent people, wondering what kind of chaos that would bring, or if Lin was correct in saying those who would own one would be responsible enough to use it only when necessary.

_But when was it ever necessary?_ He thought. _Does it ever need to come to the point where someone is so deadly, so evil and dangerous that the only way to protect others is to kill that person? That killing is the only option left when there are so many alternatives?_

With Aang gone, Tenzin realized that stripping one of their bending was no longer an option. And even if it was, what if someone was so dangerous and they were not even a bender? That ability, if the next avatar had it, would be worthless.

Tenzin thought and worried over these things, but not as much as he worried over his girlfriend who had transformed from a pleasant, generous and happy girl into a cold, isolated, strict and unforgiving young woman.

Lin was some age. People tried to make guesses about what age that was. She was somewhere in her thirties, as she would say. She stopped counting. Only Tenzin counted, but he learned a while ago to stop reminding her. She didn't care. She looked in the mirror and saw an older woman than her age would have kindly agreed to. At first, she didn't want to hear it because she did not want to know how young she was. It angered her. By now, that concern was just another part of life that she had left behind, along with all the other aspects of a human being and living a regular life in society she had long since abandoned. Now, all she did was work and continue to shed her emotions and morality and empathy. Forgetting about the value of both good and evil human beings, her connections and relationships with them, and instead caring only about bringing justice.

The phone rang. Lin sat in her mother's old office, now her own, later the day Tenzin found her in the shooting range. She was disassembling one of the handguns and putting it back together again. It had been a few years since the death of Toph, and it was obvious to everyone in the force immediately that Lin was the only one to confidently take the position. After all, they all wanted to believe that Lin was an exact replica of Toph, with all of the same fantasized characteristics. But Lin was an enigma, and soon the citizens viewed her in a more realistic and healthy way, with respect and reverence as opposed to the god-like status that Toph had achieved and continued to maintain. Lin was not the cocky and self-righteous woman that Toph had been. She was abrasive and demanding. Strict. Her work pattern was odd to many, but she never failed to impress with her uncompromising leadership when it came to dangerous missions. Strangely, she did have a tendency to take on classified jobs, as she called them, which required her to leave the city, much to the dismay of Tenzin as she would usually return from these secret trips sustaining grave injuries, one instance landing her in the hospital with doctors stunned as to how the woman was even still alive. Lin would return from these excursions after days without anyone knowing where she was and she would have broken bones, scrapes and bruises, and even gunshot wounds. Tenzin did not know what these trips entailed, they happened once every few months, and he hated that Lin kept the details of them from him. It was just an accident is what she'd say. Car accident. Caught off-guard in another mission. One of the more recent ones, Lin had a harder time covering up since she had obviously been shot with what seemed like a shotgun. Tenzin could not imagine what kind of work she was being asked to do outside of her city. Her officers never questioned it, and they, too, did not know what she was doing when she left.

Lin's officers appreciated that she cared for them so much, though, but Tenzin had a difficult time determining whether she actually did or if it was all just business to her. However, her officers felt more comfortable around Lin than the officers that had worked under Toph felt. Lin admitted to failure, she did not hide her injuries, and her facial scar forever reminded them that she had, at one point, made a mistake which would be written on her face for all time. The other metalbenders did not feel as pressured to be as perfect as their leader, they saw her as a human, and they realized she was just like them at times. It eased tension. It was something that Tenzin liked to believe comforted Lin as well, that her co-workers saw her as equal, as a human. Soon, people began to question whether or not Toph was actually the mythical, flawless destroyer of darkness that she had always been believed to be. These people wanted the real story as they came to realize that the heroine, Toph Beifong, was becoming less of a reality and more of a dream.

A white envelope had not been placed on Lin's desk but thirty seconds ago when she was once again abruptly interrupted by the ringing.

_Better be something good._

One of her officers had delivered the white manila envelope with her name on it.

"Yesterday was our anniversary, you know," Tenzin said earlier during his visit. He had come to mention to her that their anniversary of the day they began actually dating, which was still ongoing then, had come and gone, and Lin neither did nor said anything about it. Her face still healing from her most recent trip, the bruises disappearing extremely fast, the swelling going down. This trip had not brought as much harm to her as those before it, which was something that hardly gave Tenzin any relief. Her limp was unnoticeable. She continued to watch her men fire their guns at the targets. Lin felt bad, for once, but rather than apologize sincerely, she gave excuses.

"I'm sorry, I'm busy. People around here are starting to realize I'm not my mother. They no longer believe that they have some 'invincible' looking after them anymore. It's tough, Tenzin." Lin had actually felt bad about the anniversary thing, and she didn't know why she couldn't just let Tenzin know this. This was one of several anniversaries that they missed. Dates were far and few between. The clock tower was just an old memory.

"Lin, I know we are still relatively young," Tenzin said on one of their more recent dates, which happened to be months or maybe even a year ago. It was a few weeks after Lin had secretly left Republic City for a few days again. Tenzin noticed that her arm was looking surprisingly better. Upon returning to Republic City after this last trip, Tenzin learned that Lin's car had been totaled after another car 'accidentally' crashed into it, and upon seeing Lin that day he saw around her left arm a white shirt acting as a bandage. Her bone had been broken and some of it was protruding through her skin in her forearm. But that night, at the dinner table a few weeks later, it looked completely fine. Tenzin would not have been surprised if Lin had just bent the bone back into her arm and it worked itself into place again.

Lin couldn't remember a night with Tenzin that had been an actual date like that night was. Normally, their time together consisted of going to and from their offices in the city, getting coffee in the morning, going over political business together. Mostly, it just felt like work, so much so that the few times they were actually together and acted like they were still a couple felt foreign, which worried Tenzin.

"Just say what you want to say," Lin had said in response to Tenzin starting a discussion she could see coming, that he always struggled to bring up on dates. Still in her police uniform at the nice restaurant. Cold stare. No longer embarrassed about changing out of her work clothes. No longer feeling the need to apologize for not preparing herself in the slightest for a nice event out with her boyfriend.

"It's just, with my father gone now, along with most of the old generation, I just got thinking. I'm the last airbender, now. My father wanted me to keep the culture alive, and I know I do, too. It's important to me, Lin. And so are you. And I want to keep it going, give it a proper rebirth. And now, in my late thirties, a family is all I can think about. But your behavior lately has been worrying me lately. I think we should discuss this whole thing."

"You know me, Tenzin. You know I wouldn't make a good mother."

"That's not true. I know you'd feel different with a child in your hands that was your own. You'd value the child's life, and because of that you'd value your own as well. Maybe then you would realize how dangerous you have been living lately. You're right. I do know you. I know you would love a family. Love the stability it would require. I can tell. It would spark something…"

"Spark something in this cold lifeless body of mine?"

Tenzin was going to give up. He desperately wanted a family, and Lin was his significant other, although she was becoming more of just an 'other'. He had no real alternatives for the role of a mother, and a stable family was something he would make sure his kids had. But stability would hardly be attainable if Lin did not change. If she did not stop her mysterious and life-threatening travels which pinched every last nerve in Tenzin's body, wondering where she went in her absence, hoping she would come back safely. That was not something he could deal with as her husband, and that was certainly not something he would ever put his future family through. Maybe Lin just wasn't the girl for that role. He didn't know how he could convince her, or even himself, that she was the right person.

It saddened him, and it almost saddened Lin as well to see her boyfriend upset. Upset because she wasn't good enough for him, because he wasn't feeling fulfilled and it was her fault. It was a weight, but she knew she was bringing it on herself. She knew letting Tenzin go would be the only way to solve the problem, but then she would have no one left. She confided in Tenzin. He was all she had. Who would she turn to if he were to leave her? Tenzin was more than just a boyfriend to Lin, he reminded her that she was still a human. Still part of this world. Still important. She needed that. The only other thing in the world that made her feel like this, albeit remotely similar, was the police force. Was her job.

"Letter for you, Chief Beifong," the officer said that afternoon. Hours after Tenzin and Lin spoke at the shooting range. The officer placed the white envelope on her desk. "Already checked it for any threats."

"Well I hope you did a good job. Who's this from?" Lin asked.

"Don't know. Some bum. Older guy. Gray hair. Green eyes. Came and left."

Before Lin could open the letter, the phone rang.

"This is Chief Beifong."

"Ah, Lin! So good to hear your voice."

"Tenzin?"

"No, my dear, and I do mean that. No, no, this is not your boyfriend, if you can even still call him that. I am a much more important person in your life, which means right now, you have two of those."

Lin didn't have time for jokes. The man's voice sounded aged. Not old, like a wheezing old man. Just rugged, tough, like he'd seen a few sides of hell in his day. Very deep and slightly menacing.

He continued. "Do I have your attention? I have something important to tell you and you probably won't like it."

Lin was interested again. "You better get to the point or I am hanging up."

"Just like me. Cutting to the chase. Okay. Here is the way this works. Over the last few weeks, I've placed several bombs in multiple, noteworthy locations in Republic City. Pretty easy, actually. You might want to take notes about that, could be an improvement. Anyway, the point is, these places are filled with people most of the time and when these bombs go off, they are all going to die. I would suggest you take care of those threats because if you don't not only will a few people lose their lives, well more like hundreds, but additionally I've left very important clues that can help you find me. I know you've been searching. As long as you get there before the bombs go off. Until you do find me, I will continue murdering people and carrying out whatever threats I make. I'm an honest person. You've been my longest standing case and I need to turn in a paper soon and, since I cannot possibly work on more than one case at a time, it's time we ended this one. But not before a few more tests. I need insurance with this experiment…"

"What the hell are you talking about? What experiment? Just tell me where the bombs are! You don't have to worry, I'll still track you down if you let me know where they are so I can disarm them. Trust me on that, I'll hunt you for as long as it takes."

"If you try to find me without finding my bombs, if you _cheat_, two things will happen: people will die, and you will not find me. You are better off with the bombs. Just do as I say, don't meddle with the experiment and go along with it instead, we will all be fine."

"Listen, you piece of…"

"I would love to stay and chat with you longer. I really would love to get to know you. But you have a job to do, and so do I. So here are the last details I will give you. There are five bombs. Five. All hidden somewhere in this great city. You have one hour. The clue is very significant, if that is helpful. Have a good day. I will see you soon, I hope, for your sake." He hung up.

Within minutes Lin retold the story to her other officers as well as Tenzin, telling him to stay indoors on his island until she figured out what to do. Don't leave your homes. Broadcast the message. Clear out every mall, music hall and restaurant, markets and schools, sweep through the parks, get public places under control.

"Perhaps it would be better if we did not mention that this was a bomb threat?"

"That doesn't matter right now," Lin yelled. She hid her inner panic in front of her colleagues. They were scared, she could tell. Time to be a big girl. "Just get people inside. Away from crowded places. Is there anything significant going on today?"

"There is a pro-bending match today at the gym," one officer replied. "I'll have it cleared out immediately."

"I heard there was a satomobile conference or show or something by the Pratt Street bridge. It can't hurt to break that up. I'll get a message out telling everyone to go home."

"Good," Lin said. "It's just that how can we be sure that it won't be someone's home about to blow up?

Twenty minutes had passed. Lin began to sweat. She would need the answer soon, otherwise she would just be waiting around to hear of someone's death. Then tomorrow there'd be another. Then another…

_Snap out of it. You are going to stop this. _

"You said he gave you a clue?"

The phone rang. It was Tenzin. "Stay at home. I'll tell you when it is over…it's under control." She hung up. "The clue is significant. Those were his words. I don't know what they meant. Could be a joke, or could be the clue itself. He said he was an honest man. Sounded like one to me." Lin began receiving calls. No bombs at the gym. No bombs at any of the concert halls or popular events going on that day. Nothing until…

"Chief," A nervous officer said, running in. "We got one!"

"You found one of the bombs? Is it disarmed?"

"Yes."

"Where was it."

"We found it here. In this building. Downstairs near the shooting ranges. Would have blown us sky-high. Bombs were homemade. There was a note on them."

White manila envelope. Lin almost forgot the one placed on her desk that morning. Same envelope. She knew she didn't have time, but they might be more clues. She ripped the one that was found with the bomb. It was a rock. Worthless, she threw it away. She opened the envelope that had been placed on her desk. It was a small, pink blade that looked as if it had been severed from a much larger apparatus. It was ornate in its design, not much longer than a finger. It did not mean that much to her. A note came with the blade:

_Use this._

Trying to toy with her. Break through her walls and get into her head. Lin put the objects in her desk. These didn't help, but at least one bomb had been found, and it was in this building.

_What is significant about this building?_

Thirty-five minutes left.

"Police station is obviously significant. We maintain the law, keep order. What else does that?

"The council!"

"The council. Of course. Check the courthouse where the council members meet."

Thirty minutes. A bomb was found.

"In the courthouse, Chief."

Another envelope. Inside, a wooden boomerang. Sokka used to throw a similar boomerang around with Lin when she was small in her old house. A rock. A knife. A boomerang. Toph, Lin, Sokka…

_They are significant._

Twenty-five minutes.

"We've checked the other precincts. The smaller government offices. No bombs there. It wasn't just about politics and the law. At least we got two."

Two wasn't enough. Each bomb tied to someone Lin knew. Were they people she knew? Where they people everyone knew? A boomerang. Sokka. A rock. Toph. A blade. Delivered right to Lin.

Toph. Sokka. Lin. If it was everyone related to her, and the places were prominent in the city, could the two be coincidence?

The police station. Marked by the statue of Toph.

The courthouse. The council table marked by an etching of Sokka's boomerang.

Five bombs. Five people everyone knew. Five people tied to her.

Most people remembered five, and these five were scattered across the city as statues and depictions that many people would see as they marked the city's most significant landmarks.

"I know where they are. I know where the bombs are," she said.

One was easy. Zuko. Zuko's statue marked the Central City Station.

The bomb was found, set to detonate at one of the most crowded times of the day. Another envelope. Another written message:

_Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts._

The quote was familiar to Lin. It was part of a longer speech made by an old Fire Nation general many years ago. But why was this here? What did it have to do with her? Even if she knew where the bombs were, who was the one planting them?

"What about Katara, there is no statue of her?"

"The mosaic. The one in front of the hospital. The biggest hospital in the city. Find that bomb immediately," Lin ordered.

Fifteen minutes. The bomb was found. Another envelope. Inside was a tear of a small blanket. Similar to a blanket Lin slept with when she was a young girl, a blanket given to Toph as a gift by Katara.

"That leaves one more. Avatar Island. The Statue of Aang. It has to be. The last one" But there was no bomb on Avatar Island. Ten minutes left, Lin continued searching, trying to find the bomb, hoping it would not come to this. That it wasn't here. That it had to be in only one other place that would represent Aang. The home of her most beloved friend in the world. She had her practical concerns for the people of Republic City and their safety, but Tenzin was on a completely different tier to her.

Five minutes. The final bomb. The final envelope. Right underneath the floor on which Tenzin was eating. Found. Disarmed. Inside the envelope, a photograph. One taken only a few years ago. Lin and Tenzin stood in front of the Air Temple. She still looked a little happy. A little. Tenzin was hardly smiling as usual. But the man who had taken this, she could not remember what it was for. She never saw this picture before, but surely she must have arranged to have it taken. Then who was the one taking it?

Lin's mind raced. She nearly shook and looked confused and frustrated. Tenzin was speechless. An entire culture, an entire race of people nearly wiped out. The only thing Lin had left in this world that meant anything to her, Tenzin, nearly taken away. She could hardly breathe. She was angry. She wanted blood for this.

"Lin. I know you are mad. Please, take a few days to get over this. Don't act just yet, we will find this guy. You have the clues, you are smart. Please, before you do anything against him, wait until you are no longer angry, just so that you aren't doing anything out of vengeance."

"I'll try. You just stay put until I got this all figured out."

Lin trusted Tenzin, and would attempt to take his advice. She knew he was right. If she had the man responsible in front of her, she would strangle him. She still held Tenzin's wishes dear to her, and so she listened. Lin hardly had time to be recognized by the city for her foiling of the bombing terrorist threat. She would find him. She would analyze the clues, ask every witness, find out every man who had been in the five spots over the last few days. She wouldn't even sleep. Lin knew of no breaks anymore. The city was in danger from a madman. She spiraled into an overdrive that left her confused and stressed and unstable for four days, four days as a recluse, worrying Tenzin. Four days of anxiety as the young airbender thought of nothing but the state of his girlfriend, wondering what she was doing, wondering which day she would take action, but then the one came. The answer. The truth. In the form of something so enlightening to her, and he did not know what it was. She called Tenzin.

"Lin," he said. He was tired, but certain in his greeting. "What is happening?"

"Tenzin. Are you okay?"

"Yes. I am fine. Where are you? What is going on?"

"I think...I figured it out. All of it."

"You know who it is!" Tenzin said, a statement that would have offered him much relief if it was not being drowned in dread for what Lin would do next. It was too soon since the events. He wanted her to wait a little longer, let herself cool down.

"Yes. I know who it is," she said, her voice low. No emotion. "I have already informed the press that the situation is under control. The city need no longer fear another threat. I will make sure of that."

"Lin, what are you planning on doing?"

"Whatever I have to. I am going alone. I need to ask you something. I need you to meet me at the clock tower. At midnight."

"Please, Lin. I know you are angered by what has happened. Don't let yourself be controlled by it. Don't let my involvement fuel your hatred. Don't seek vengeance."

Lin was silent. Tenzin could hear her breathing.

"Lin, it's just another case. Don't take this too far. If you do this, if you let your anger overpower you, you will regret this for the rest of your life. It will haunt you..."

"You don't understand, Tenzin. It's not just another case. It's not just another killer. Please, just promise you will meet me there…"

Tenzin agreed. Feeling jittery and in no mood to stay put, Tenzin left his lonely bedroom on Air Temple Island and made his way to the clock tower to meet his girlfriend. It was eleven in the evening. The man paced back and forth on the ledge for what felt like hours. He passed the tiny little depictions in the stones of the ledge walls, crafted by Lin as a child when she first learned to earthbend, trying to show off to Tenzin. He smiled briefly, missing those relaxing days. Missing her.

Tenzin heard the sound of the motorcycle.

"Lin..." Tenzin uttered quietly. Her back faced him. She leaned on her bike, breathing slowly. Unable to look at him. Tenzin's heart dropped.

"I didn't want to meet you on the balcony of this place," she said. "It would remind me of old times. Those times are gone. You know that as well as I do."

They were quiet for a few seconds longer.

"What did you do, Lin?"

"I did what I had to, in order to protect my city."

Tenzin knew what that meant. He understood all the signals perfectly. She was unhappy with what had happened, but to her, there was no other way. Tenzin was speechless. He knew the truth. He found it redundant to ask, but he was so desperate for the answer he wanted. But he only received the one he dreaded.

"You killed him?"

Lin finally looked over at him. There was nothing in her green eyes. They were empty and filled with darkness. A void. Her gray-black hair hung down in front of her face.

She looked at him as if nothing mattered to her anymore. Not even Tenzin. Not even herself.

"There were so many alternatives, Lin. Why didn't you just tell me? Why didn't you bring your officers with you? Why didn't you just arrest him? There were so many ways to stop him, I am telling you..."

"No. There weren't. He was unstoppable."

"That is not true! You gave in to your weakness, Lin, your despair. You let your hatred overcome you and you've acted like an animal. He baited you and you just played his game like he wanted..."

"There was no game, Tenzin! This isn't some silly, childish game to me that I am trying to play fairly, that I'm trying to win! I don't care. This isn't about my moral code. This isn't about forgiveness or vengeance. This was about protecting my city. My city which has lived in fear these last few months. Fear that they would be blown up. Fear of going outside lest they get kidnapped and are part of a terrorist threat or the target of another one of these assassins running rampant. This world is becoming a dark and dangerous place to live. I did what I had to do so they can live at least a little more safely. I did what I had to so that people like you can sleep at night knowing another maniac is gone. I didn't give a single thought as to whether or not I proved myself to you. What I did, it was the only way to eliminate him. If I have to carry the burden of a man's life so that my citizens can live safely without fear, then I will do it. If killing is the only way to stop a psychotic killer, then I will accept the role of the executioner. I will carry that weight with me for the rest of my life. And yes, it is hard to accept what I have done. But it was not out of vengeance. It is my duty to these people. It is my job."

Tenzin was silent, then he became sad. "Your duty has taken precedence over everything. Even us."

"There is no more 'us', Tenzin. I can see it in your eyes. You hate me. You wish you had someone else. Someone who wants what you always want and will always listen to you. Do what you say. Start your family with you and be the ideal mother that you just keep hoping I will one day be. But we both know that I am not that person. I'm not anything. Not to you. Not to anyone. I am not part of your world or anyone else's world. I do what I have to in life. I have established my own place here and it does not involve you anymore. It can't anymore. I can no longer invest myself in this world the way you do. It's only this city that I serve. And you know, your opinion of that just doesn't affect me. Nothing does. Nothing at all anymore. I live for these people. I live to protect them. It is the only reason I exist anymore."

"Lin...I still care about you."

"Thanks, but that is as hollow as a tube to me now, Tenzin. There's no denying that you just want me to be different, but you can't bring yourself to leave, nor can you understand that I will never change. I've stepped out of the fabric of this society. I'm an outlier that does nothing more than protect. Than serve. I wish you didn't think the way you do. It just drives us apart."

"Lin, why are you talking like this? What has happened to you? Do you really not care about anything anymore?"

Tenzin saw the hesitation on her face. She did still care, at least he wanted to believe she did. He wanted to be with her, wanted her to stay and get over this phase of her life. He thought if he tried, if he stuck by her side for just a little longer, he would once again, somehow, find the old Lin that he still loved.

"I'm sorry."

Lin stepped onto her motorcycle and started the engine. Tenzin saw his own reflection on her armor. What was she? A woman? A killer? A servant?

A machine?

She drove off into city. Tenzin watched her round a corner. And she was gone. Out of his life, perhaps. Tenzin would try to stop that, prove that it was not true, but it was inevitable, and he was sad, but only because he knew Lin would never be able to be truly happy. But did she even know true happiness? Maybe not, then maybe she doesn't know sadness either.

The clock tower chimed midnight. He knew it would not chime again for the rest of the night.


	14. Disconnected

-Disconnected-

"Things were never the same between us after that night," Tenzin told Manases. "Our relationship was slowly deteriorating over the years, but that was probably the largest blow to whatever we still had together. After that, I was troubled. I tried to reach out to her, I knew, even though she ignored and rejected me, I somehow just knew she still wanted me there beside her. Wanted to preserve our relationship. But she never tried. She was never there. She was working. Always working. Never caring about anything but her job. I would stress over her, finding ways to make her happy again, finding ways to rekindle what we had. Just trying to get a word with her. For so long, almost a year, I refused to let go of her."

Manases had arrived just less than half an hour ago, looking urgent, looking worried when Tenzin answered the door to find him. The airbender was happy to see the young reporter again.

"I can't place my finger on it, kid. You've got a charm. Charisma, that's what it is. I like talking to you."

Manases had heard those words before somewhere. He bypassed the friendly, welcoming gestures of food or something to drink.

"What is the problem?" Tenzin asked.

"I still need time to figure everything out, but after some investigation I am starting to believe there is a very dangerous person on the loose and you might be one of his targets."

"I see. Who is this man?"

"I can't say with certainty. Tenzin, do you know of someone named Indra? Or possibly Devas Asura?"

"I do not. Please, explain to me again why you think someone is trying to hurt me?" Tenzin asked, skeptical but nevertheless worried over this news.

"I've been doing quite a bit of research into Lin and Toph's lives. All legal and unclassified stuff," Manases lied. "I've come across a very peculiar person who keeps coming up. Someone who is in some way tied to the Beifongs and may have been stalking Lin. I found an old photograph of you with her, and you were circled in red."

"You'd be surprised at how many times my father was threatened by killers...as well as myself."

"There is something that I need to know, though, sir. You're important to this man, whoever he is. Your relationship with Lin was significant, significant to Lin's whole life, significant to my story. I think there is more that can be told than you think. I don't know if this guy is really a threat, but I'll find out, and I think you can help me. I know this might just sound confusing to you, but I really need to know the whole story. I really need to know about your break-up with Lin."

"I've told you. It was not a single event. We drifted apart. We wanted different things. Lin changed from the happy, adventurous girl she was when she was younger. She has distanced herself from the world, from society, from me and everyone. We never actually broke up, but she knew it was over when I was with someone else, I guess."

"Was there anything that really…hastened the process? Anything significant?"

Tenzin thought for a moment. He looked out his window and brought himself back to the memory he tried to suppress for many years. Every time his telephone rang, however, he felt that it was her, calling him again, telling him that she had found the one responsible for the bombings. The one responsible for nearly blowing up Tenzin almost thirteen years ago. He would wake from his sleep some nights, lying next to his wife, still in a dreamy state, expecting to hear Lin's voice again, telling him to meet her at the clock tower at midnight, telling him she had to do it. Like she was always sitting on the other side of his window, hesitating to reveal herself and then holding back. Tenzin wouldn't stop what Lin had done. Not that he didn't want to, but he wouldn't be able to. He did not know of anything in this world that could change or move her. He didn't pine over the woman, though. The memory never made him regret, never made him think of what could have been. It only haunted him, chilling his spine as he thought about how that day could never be different, and about the cold person that Lin had become.

"She just drove away after all that?" Manases asked, the memory of the bombings now unveiled to him.

"I would never see her the same way after that night. I do not have proof that she actually killed the man responsible for the bombings. I do not even know who he was. The case just disappeared, and so did something inside Lin. People started to forget the incident, but she didn't. Whatever ties to her old self that existed were obliterated that night. She had lost her humanity, drifted away from this planet, from me. Just a shell with nothing inside it, driven only by her duty to work and serve the city. A shell made of metal. That was what she became. I tried to break through that shell for about a year. I struggled to get to her, help her, be there for her. I was stubborn. I held on to her and refused to believe that it was over, and I chose to ignore the fact that my life was being negatively affected and only getting worse as I tried to keep what we had going. Trying to arrange dates. Trying to bring her flowers, take her out to dinner, get her to talk to me, to someone, anyone, in order to help her. But everything we had was gone, and I owed it to myself to realize that and move on, no matter what it would do to Lin.

"It was with the help of a young air acolyte that I realized all of this. She was a girl who cared deeply for me and would listen to me pour out my qualms about Lin. Her name was Pema, and she knew I was not happy, and if I continued on this path, I would become the same thing that Lin has become. Emotionless. Alone and empty. Cut off from society, from every aspect of being a human. Isolated. I feared that she was right, and as I continued to try and reach Lin, I could _see_ that she was right. I was frustrated, stressed. Easily angered when distracted. And confused. I avoided people and became so much more serious about the tiniest issues. It was tearing me apart, but she helped me through it, this girl, Pema. She helped me avoid that path. And by the time she told me she had strong feelings for me, even loved me, I felt so stupid because I realized that I had developed the same feelings for her. She had never left my side, never abandoned me, and I still love her today, very much. That was about eleven years ago. I would say that was when Lin and I were officially over."

"And what about her? What about Lin?"

"Lin will always be important to me, but I could not continue to stay with her. It was hurting me, crippling my social life and even my health. It was not her fault. I knew something was missing in her life, and that makes me sad, now. I knew she never felt quite whole, but I never knew why. Lin built so many walls around herself over the years and I could never understand her or learn more about her. She just would not let me in her head, but the fact that I kept trying to do this impossible task was what afflicted me. I guess it is only pity I feel when I think of her and the woman she has become. She has done so much good for this city, she would die for me and for you and for any citizen if it meant their safety, if it meant peace. I know she would. But that is all we are to her. An object she must protect. She has that one and only purpose. She will be doomed to live alone if she continues this way. If she never allows herself to open up, and truly reconnect herself with others, with the world. She may not ever find true happiness by herself or with someone else. But she knew that, on that day at the clock tower. The day she killed that man, whoever he was, whatever the reason he was so important. She knew she would bear this burden for the rest of her life, the trauma. She knew what kind of life she was going to inevitably live, but she accepted it. It was the price she would easily pay for her city to be safe. I thought I hated her at one point because she had fallen so low after she committed an act of murder thirteen years ago, but something about her, these reasons for which she committed those acts, they just were not what I expected from her, from anyone for that matter, and in a twisted and counter-intuitive way, I respect her for those reasons."


	15. Chance Meeting

-Chance Meeting-

Manases lied on the bed in his hotel room downtown. The last two days were strange to him, they were like one continuous stream of events occurring linearly but in actuality they all happened in different times in history. As if he had lived through and experienced fifty years seeing through the eyes of others as if they were his own, feeling what they felt, as he pieced the story together. Toph. Lin. Tenzin. And Indra. Lives intertwined through time. Every story transporting Manases back to the actual event, cycling through the lives of these two women and confusing his sense of time. He had gone back nearly sixty years and all the way back up to the present in the course of forty-eight hours.

_So many details, Manases. Your story is due soon. Try to put it together. Toph Beifong, Chief of Police and legend to this city, is called in to help catch a deranged serial killer under the name, 'Indra', who keeps piles of research papers, most likely written by him, under the name, 'Devas Asura'. Devas Indra Asura, he brands people with a scratch mark as he has three blades attached to three of his fingers, then he makes ludicrous demands, then kills the victim no matter what about a week later. Toph, she is threatened by him, but she ignores this and catches Indra, cutting off two fingers, one of them attached to a blade. Three fingers, two blades left. The man is imprisoned. Toph gloats about the case. Indra escapes with the help of some professor who has connections in the city. _

_Indra rapes Toph to conceive Lin then disappears, or so I think. Toph gives birth to Lin and raises her but fears her daughter's safety. Lin begins dating Tenzin. Toph intensifies the training, making her daughter feel she is inadequate inadvertantly. Lin isolates herself from others except Tenzin. She becomes a police officer, over-confident in herself but that confidence soon diminishes when she is cut on the face with a mark similar to Indra's. She learns and goes on to be a great officer nevertheless. Toph's fear for her daughter affects Lin's mental state. Lin pulls away from the world and her relationship with Tenzin becomes crippled. Her stability is further shaken after Toph dies and Lin discovers the truth about her mother and identifies her father as being Indra from an old photograph but there is no evidence that she found him, or that Toph ever did._

_A few years later, there is a bomb threat. Five structures which have ties to the original Team Avatar in Republic City are where these bombs are planted, one of them being Tenzin's home. The bombs are disarmed, but they each have clues, and Lin supposedly discovers the killer and presumably goes to kill him. Tenzin and Lin break up._

The end? _No,_ Manases thought. There was a missing piece. It may not have been necessary. What he had already was probably gold. But there was an itch, a tiny void he could not fill without going to the only person who would know: the Chief herself. Even if it was not essential to his report, even though he would get his prize for the information he had, he just needed to know. He just needed to know what Lin actually did the night she admitted killing the bomber. Manases had no doubts that the bomber was Indra, and that he was probably long gone. But these details were so crucial, like a keystone holding every other piece of the story together. The final segment that he _needed_ to know. What did she do? Where did she go that night after the bomb threats? Who was Indra?

Manases drifted off to sleep thinking these things, and soon his mind traveled back in time, but in his own life. Back to a few days before arriving here in the city. He sat in a dark room and heard the same, skewed words he had heard all his life.

_People like you, Manases. You've got a charm. Very charismatic. They'll want to talk to you. Open up to you and feel comfortable telling you things that most people would have trouble admitting or would refuse to. In other words, you can get the truth out of people, and the very best of truths. The kind that people like to hide because it makes a good story, which is what we want. _

_They'll like you. They'll love you. You've got an innocence about you. A hint of naivety but not without confidence and intelligence. A nice kid, but not a coward. However, the kind of person you are can be meaningless if you let them think for a second that you are deceiving them. Your innocence and honesty will have no effect, it will be thin, hallow, they won't be able to tell if it is genuine or not. But I wouldn't worry about that. You'll do fine out there, which is why we are giving you this task. People shy from this one. It is a very well-kept secret, the past of these two women. Things happened that were released to the public, but they are just bits of a whole, intertwined story of which we are unaware. I'm talking about the Beifongs, and the details of their lives that have been concealed from us. We need the facts because there was something bigger going on none of us knew about. The Chief, the birth of Lin, the scars. All of them feed off of one another. All them are cause and effect. You are going to figure out how they relate. You are going to bring back to me the story of Toph and Lin Beifong._

The phone rang.

It cackled like a maniacal laugh. Manases slipped away from his dream and into the room lit by the rising sun. Who would it be? He had heard that ring so many times, in everyone's tale. He had lived so many lives when he heard these tales, lives turned upside down by a simple phone call.

Was it Indra? Calling for Toph? Would Manases see her walk across this room to answer it, knowing what she was going to hear? His threat for her to keep her distance. Was it all those years ago. Could he stop it?

Was he calling for Lin? Tempting her to find him? Did she ever find him? Did she ever get her revenge?

Or was Lin the one calling? Was Manasas living someone else's life? Was he just the avatar for each storyteller in all of these pieces comprising Toph and Lin's lives?

The phone rang. Manases picked it up.

"Manases."

"What is the meaning of this, Manases?"

Tenzin.

"I don't understand."

"Neither did I until now," Tenzin said, furious. "What is this project of yours? Who is it for?"

"I've told you..."

"Yes, you have told me. You've told me what I thought was an honest truth but am now starting to see the malice in what you are doing and the lies covering it up. I know what kind of job you've been assigned to."

"What are you talking about?" Manases felt a lump in his throat. He started to sweat. The panic inside him traveling through the phone lines. Tenzin could feel it. Tenzin knew he was right.

"I'm not playing this game of yours anymore. I was called by a man this morning. He wouldn't tell me who he was, but he was asking about you. Asking about a certain story that you are supposed to have to him soon about the Beifongs. This certainly did not sound like any college professor asking about his student, about a class project. I was interrogated, questioned about you and Lin, my family and children, and he demanded me to give him such detailed answers about these private things. I told you what you asked for because I trusted you, I thought I saw good intentions in you, kid. You had a curiosity and I thought it was nothing more than that. But now I see what you are doing here. I know your kind. I know about the kind of people you are here for, working for, collecting personal information for. They are nothing but thieves and liars who warp and twist stories and words and display them for everyone to see. For people who don't deserve or need to know. And they get rewarded, don't they? These writers. They get their names out there, they get fame and recognition. And you think no one is a victim when you unveil the dark pasts of well-known people but it will be Lin who will suffer for this! You don't know her. You hear me? She has done more for you than you even realize. You think you can walk these streets without being touched or hurt for no reason? Lin ensures that for you. Lin has taken down every evil that has come up against this city and would sacrifice everything just for _your_ life. These people depend on her, on Toph, on their idea of who the Beifongs were and forever will be. Lin has spent years suppressing the memories of her past, trying to overcome the things that have happened to her, and the things she has done. If you choose to go through with this job of yours, I guess I can only blame myself for helping you, but I cannot really do any more than that. But if you can just remember something as you turn in everything you have found: remember the one who will be affected by this. Remember the woman who, as distant as she may be, as inhuman as she may appear, had to endure the pain of experiencing the events you will be releasing, and ask yourself if it is really necessary that she see it everywhere in her life again, if she hears it over the radio and reads it in the papers and sees it on everyone's face. Everyone who will know. Do they really need to know? Does anyone need to know? Do we all deserve or even need to learn every secret of every person out there? Lin's do not affect you. They do not affect me. They affect no one but herself, and I don't believe it is up to you who knows them and who does not."

"Then...what do you want me to do?"

"Just forget, Manases. Please, just let it go, give it up, and forget it all. Realize what is more important." He hung up.

Manases slammed the phone in anger. Anger toward whom? Was it Tenzin? He had just called and told him to quit his project, but Manases was not angry at the man. Was it the Beifongs? They were so difficult to figure out. Was it himself? Perhaps...

Was it his boss?

Mostly, his anger stemmed from confusion. His task, his progress, tainted. His goals challenged by the morals of another and now he did not know what was right. He did not know what to do and it was Thursday morning.

* * *

Manases spoke into the receiver of the phone in the tavern.

"Yes. I understand...yes, I understand, I said that already. Look, I will have it tomorrow. I have it now, I just need to speak with _her_. She has the last puzzle piece in all of this...No, I don't really want to discuss it until I meet with you. It is a long story...okay, I should be back tomorrow. I'll call you before I leave and...yes, I'll have it on your desk. Goodbye."

That morning, he sat on his bed, the day seemed to last forever. The sun sluggishly crawling across the sky, and Manases could do nothing better with his time than sit on his bed and watch the star move. Counting the seconds. Trying to settle the dispute in his mind. Two warring sides. What is right? What is wrong? And where did he stand? Somewhere in the middle? Was evil overtaking him or was it actually naivety to the whole situation?

_What does that even have anything to do with this?_

Lofty thoughts and tangents like these blocked Manases from reaching a conclusion, but helped speed up the day, against his wishes. After arguing with himself for so long, Manases gave up and decided to leave. He stepped outside for the first time that day. He had been up since dawn and it was now the afternoon. The sun hit his skin and whatever energy he had pent up was quickly being drained. His legs were tight from sitting all day. He looked at everyone around him, going about their days, going to work, going to lunch. Talking with friends. Laughing. Smiling. Enjoying themselves. Others, busy with their job, yelling into payphones at co-workers and clients. Did they all have secrets, too? What if they all had pasts that were even more noteworthy than Lin's? What if they had also been the product of some psychotic rapist, created for the purpose of revenge? It could be. Did they deserve to have their pasts revealed? Did people _need_ to know about them? One man's distress becomes another man's pleasure? Was that right?

It didn't seem so, but then why Lin? Why did it seem different with her? Because she was known? Because the name, 'Beifong'? A war hero? A legend? A myth? A myth that everyone knew, but at the same time, no one seemed to know. For many, that was okay. That was necessary. They needed the name, Beifong, or rather, they needed the widespread interpretation of the name. Without the finer details. They knew there was more to the woman they looked up to, but they also knew that sometimes things should just be left to the unknown. They were mature enough not to believe in myths, while simultaneously being grateful for the myth to exist. In order to give them hope, as well as strength. A symbol of courage and justice. A myth, In order to remind them that even if the woman was flawed, that did not change the things she had done for the city.

However, there were others could not accept this. Those who were not able to see the dual truths, the clashing realities that the Beifong women were both the flawless and the flawed. The protector and the victim. One had to be broken, and it would be the myth, the symbol of perfection, representing all that is absolutely good, for such an concept was implausible. And it was this concept that must be destroyed, but for what purpose? So that everyone would remember the name not for the good things the women had done but rather the bad things that had happened to them? The failures in their lives? The tiniest slab of darkness in their pasts that would contaminate everything about the women? In all of this, did Manases even think of Lin? Or was he thinking of the city and its well-being? A city which depends on the name, Beifong.

_A city._ He thought. A city, just a bunch of walls and shiny buildings and clean water guarding and surrounding pain and suffering and burden and regret and trauma and chaos that is hidden underneath all the ornate designs and pretty architectures. Things that people don't want to see everyday, things nobody wants on display but they know they are there all the time. They know they must face them head on at some time. Realize they cannot leave these things behind but rather must bear with them everyday while they try to hold their heads up and continue with their lives.

Lin was the same, like all people, thick, shiny metal walls encasing her secrets. Things that should not escape. Things she does not want to be defined by. Things no one needed to know except her because she was the only one that has to deal with those secrets.

But he needed to know. Manases needed to know. The final piece. He had to find it. To satisfy his unbearable itch.

Manases spoke into the receiver in the tavern then hung up the phone after speaking with his boss. There was a scent in this bar, a familiar one from a few days ago, but in the whirlpool of abstract thoughts in his mind Manases did not associate the smell with the location. Did not associate the bartender's name with the name in his memory upon his arrival to this city. He did not realize that everything had suddenly, as if by fate, just come together.

"The usual?" Ten Ren asked a customer two people down from Manases.

"Yes. Thank you, Ten Ren," the woman said. An older voice, much older than Manases's voice. But not old as in weak. A sharp, intimidating voice subtly overlaid with hesitation. The shining metal uniform with the iconic police badge over the left side of the the breast plate. Short, wavy gray hair. Shorter than he expected after hearing so many of the stories. A face withered by time and her share of traumatic experiences, but he had only come to find out about one of them.

It seemed strange to Manases now, even though he had planned this 'chance meeting' a few days ago, that he subconsciously came to this bar at this time without actually thinking about it because he just had to find her. During his day lost in a pool of mixed up thoughts something just brought him to this spot by accident. He just had to know. After hearing nothing but tales about the object of his interest, after building up a mythical character in his mind based on the stories of this woman and her mother, it was almost surreal that she was sitting just a few booths away. She seemed like a force of nature rather than a human. A fictional protagonist in this twisted story.

However, before he could comprehend this fact, she had gone. Her seat empty. Two drinks down without him even noticing. In the next instant, she had slipped by him, so quietly, without him even realizing it.

"That was her, you know? You said you wanted to speak to her, right?" Ten Ren said.

He missed it. He missed the one chance he had to finally complete it. She was just gone. He should just sit there. Let it go. Let the story fade away again into the abyss. But Manases felt the badge in his pocket, he fabricated the new story about himself in his mind, about his intentions and his past, then left the bar in pursuit of this woman that suddenly meant more to him than his own work.

He left the bar and could not tell if it was dusk or still dawn from that morning. The sun rested of the horizon, and there was a fifty percent chance it was going down which meant he would have to search once again in the darkness of the night for the woman. But the Chief had not traveled far from the tavern before he found her standing on the threshold of a small park on the top of a hill, smoking a cigarette, watching the sunset. Fascinating, it was almost like something a human would do.

Manases stood across the street, looking at her back, unsure of himself. Not even unsure about whether or not he should go through with his work anymore, but rather if he was brave enough to lie to this brute force.

_Deep breaths. You got this._

"Excuse me? Chief Beifong?"

She turned her head to look at him, and that was when he saw the glowing green eyes. He expected an entire story contained solely within those eyes. But when he looked into them, he saw nothing. Emptiness.

"I'm really sorry to bother you, I'm detective Ridha with the Southern Si Wong Police Department," Manases held up the badge he had found in the old house, a badge that signified a police officer no matter which area they were stationed. Hoping she would not ask for more proof of his occupation. "There is a case that has yet to be closed which I have been assigned to. It is something I think only you can help me with."

"I am not on my shift, as you can see," she spoke. She did not look bothered by his presence, but the tone in her voice proved otherwise. She blew more smoke into the air, waiting for Manases, now Detective Ridha, to reply. He did not realize for a few seconds that she was done talking.

"I tried today, but you were very tied up, and I really do not have a lot of time with this case..."

She flicked her cigarette into the street and started to walk into the small park, toward a bench overlooking a small pond. "I don't remember being too particularly busy today. Did you actually try?" As if she could already tell he was lying and that he was doing a terrible job of it.

Manases felt the heat over him, making him sweat again, his heart beat. He knew she would hear that. He held it back. This was challenging.

_Just drop the name._

"Please, ma'am. I have a very sensitive case on my hands, and I have been able to learn a lot about it from people here in the city, but it has yet to be closed. I say this with urgency because, well, I am from a town that was once plagued by the man this case happens to be about. They are scared because they do not know his whereabouts. He has been tied to many crimes: bombings, arson, and murder to say the least. We have reason to believe he is dead, but there is still something missing, which I am hoping you can clear up for me, since the last this man was heard from, he was in your city, and we heard about him from you."

Lin looked as though she had started to pay attention to Manases. Maybe it was the little amount of alcohol she had, or maybe he had stricken a chord, but something pushed Lin into asking, "Does this man have a name?"

"Devas Indra Asura."

Manases could tell that the ball had started rolling, friction losing its grip on her will. The tale began to unfold as the words poured out of her. The final piece of the story. Lin.


	16. Lin: Confrontation

_Final piece_

_-_Lin: Confrontation-

Thirteen years prior.

It felt like guilt. Guilt that her closest and most beloved friend had nearly been killed that day, just because he was associated with her. Because this psychopathic killer knew exactly where to strike Lin.

"Ms. Beifong! Witnesses at the Central City Station. Scares of a bomb threat throughout the city, how do you explain this? Chief Beifong, you were witnessed at the hospital with what appeared to be a bomb! What is the state of this situation? Ms. Beifong, a bomb was disarmed underneath Air Temple Island minutes before detonating, any word on any suspects?"

Microphones jammed into her face. Cameras flashing from every angle out of the sea of news reporters. Lin had no time for a stop and chat. No concern for her image, no time to boost her reputation by glorifying herself to people whose opinions did not matter to her.

"The bombs are disarmed," she said. "The case is under investigation. That is all."

"Ms. Beifong! Ms. Beifong! Chief Beifong!"

They continued to yell, but Lin pushed past them and entered the police department, where she would be spending her next four days, going over clues, testimonies, analyzing the explosives used, narrowing down suspects. In the end, it was as if the culprit was standing in the room with her as she came to her conclusion, smiling over her shoulder as he breathed down her neck. Making every hair stand up. A feeling she remembered from a few years before: the figure in the dimly lit street by her house, the man at the end of the hallway who had always disappeared in thin air, the voice she distinctly heard over crowds, the eyes watching her, following her, from the photograph of her mother the day of Lin's conception.

_It can't be. It just can't be. He's finally come for me now._

Lin looked over the clues left by the terrorist responsible for planting the bombs, and it would appear that she had just been approached by the very man she had spent the last few years trying to find. Years of tracing the trail of breadcrumbs back to the house in which she was born, to the apartment of her conception, to the small towns where the murders had taken place by the one named Indra. She had been inside hotel rooms and could feel him breathing. Waiting. Smiling. Behind the walls. In the ceiling. Under the bed and in the closet. His presence was left like a scent, layered over every object he came into contact with, forever leaving a piece of himself behind for others to follow, and Lin was one of them.

She had infiltrated old buildings and homes outside the city, places to which her clues led her, only to find them abandoned, knowing from the feeling on the bottom of her feet, the scent, that Indra had been there, just seconds before she arrived. But long gone, and the only thing left for her to find was some sort of trap left by him, usually in the form of a person who had given up their conscience and lived a life of murder in exchange for money, and this time the money came from Indra.

Lin had fought her way through hordes of mindless assassins in back alleys and empty warehouses and country-town bars only to find that the man who hired them, the one Lin was seeking, was completely unknown, a faceless nobody that the assassins only spoke to over the phone, another client they could not describe. These killers did not even know a single detail about Indra but that he had paid them to kill her. The assassins were always there, ready to meet Lin by the time she arrived because Indra always knew where she would end up as if he laid the clues on purpose for her to follow to the exact spots where the assassins were waiting for her. And she followed, and she battled the most dangerous people on the planet, and she always came out victorious, but never any closer to the one she was actually looking for. She was endlessly hunting a man who seemed to be endlessly hunting her, neither waiting for the other to just catch up with them, neither succumbing to the other's attacks. Every clue she found, every mission she planned for herself, every time she left the city to pursue this one man, she would only hit a dead-end and dive into a night of terror as she struggled to prevail against the world's most well-known killers in order to return safely to the city. Countless times she thought she had him, and countless times she was thwarted, and countless more times she barely made it back alive.

The hospital visits soon became routine for her, just another nuisance.

"I don't understand how you are alive. Honestly, Ms. Beifong, you were shot in the stomach by a shotgun, I don't think you should even be in one piece right now," the healer at the hospital had said after she had come in sustaining critical injuries from the Gent and Stella, burn marks and bruises on her body in addition to the gunshot wound which should have blown her to bits. She returned to work within three days..

Another time. "My Spirits, the bone is protruding through the skin, Ms. Beifong. This is serious, we will have to set the bone again. You need to rest this arm," the healer said. Lin told them to do what they had to do. Tenzin had seen her return with the wound, an old shirt tied around her arm to stop the bleeding. Her car completely totaled, she told him she had just gotten into an accident. If by accident, she meant that one assassin in particular, a man, in another car had deliberately crashed into the driver side door of her car at full speed, t-boning Lin's car in an attempt to kill her, but only breaking her arm and getting himself killed in the act. Her car was done for, she would have to get a new one soon, but for the time being Lin just used an old motorcycle to get around quickly. Tenzin wasn't too happy about that whole ordeal. At least she thought he believed her story once he stopped asking questions about it.

A more recent time. "Ms. Beifong, you really should not return to work any time soon. The wound on your leg isn't going to get any better unless you rest," the healer said. Lin had been stabbed in the leg by an assassin who favored using daggers. She returned to work the next day, and three weeks after that day Tenzin arrived to find her at the new shooting range as she watched her officers practice with the new handguns. She had also been practicing with the weapon, sure of herself that, if ever in a bind, she would feel nearly as comfortable with that weapon as she does with her metalbending to protect herself. As harsh as she was with Tenzin about the idea of introducing guns to the force, she was still a little scared of the moment when she may have to actually use the handgun to take someone else's life in order to preserve her own and those around her.

Lin wondered, looking over the clues, thinking back on her secret excursions, if she was following in her mother's footsteps. Trying to find the one responsible for all the misery in Toph's life. Looking for the meaning behind the scar on her face. Finding the one responsible for Lin's existence.

Just a name was all she had. Devas Indra Asura. She could not trust the photograph of him. He had most likely changed his face, but not his scent. Not that unmistakable aura about him that made Lin so uncomfortable when she sensed that it was near. She tried to think of all of those instances when she had that feeling come over her. There were too many to count: the day her mother died and the funeral, but she also sometimes felt it just going through her everyday work, getting something to eat, sitting in her childhood home. She may have even held a conversation with this man and not even had known it but just knew the feeling. He may have been the one that took the picture of her and Tenzin. If he had been so physically close to her, why didn't he just kill her then? Why lead her to his assassins to attempt the dirty work? Why preserve her life? What made him want her to keep searching for him?

"I wanted to see what kind of person you were, Lin," Indra said. "I needed to make sure that you were what I was hoping for. What I was intending you to be. I sent the best assassins to stand in your way and even when you were on the verge of death you brought them down to their knees, had them begging to be spared, and you summoned all of your strength to stand back up. You are unstoppable, just like I am."

Toph had hunted the man as well, but soon it became inevitable that she would have to give up that hope of revenge. She had a daughter. She had a new life and revenge was something she could not turn to now that she was a depended upon adult. Toph never forgave herself for letting Indra slip from her concerns after Lin was given the scar on her face by him. But something held her back from saying anything, ever. She was tied and restrained by some kind of fear, for herself, for her appearance. For Lin. Toph thought if she just ignored him, perhaps he would have disappeared like a bad dream.

The clues scattered on Lin's desk. She felt so stupid because it was so obvious who the man was. Where he was hiding, and even why he was there.

Lin put the coins into the payphone.

Her first call was to the press. Informing them that the situation was under control. Ordering them to tell the citizens to no longer worry about any more terrorists threats like that for now. That the man had been captured and was in police custody.

She hung up the phone then picked the receiver back up to make another call, this one much tougher for her to push herself through.

"I figured it all out," she spoke. Tenzin was worried. He was against what she was doing, going alone after the man responsible, so soon after he had nearly blown up the city. She knew his thoughts, but she also knew what was at stake. What she was dealing with. It was not about her anger or vengeance at this point, like Tenzin thought. But she didn't feel that Tenzin would understand. This was something only she could handle, and she would have to handle it alone. She knew that no matter what her reasons, Tenzin may never look at her the same way, he may never love her the way he used to, if he even still did after the way she had been acting. Lin was unsure if she was prepared for this. She wanted him, but she needed to tie up her loose ends with the man who had completely broken her mother, and she felt the two roads, the road to her lifelong lover, and the road to her biological father, were mutually exclusive.

Tenzin insisted on stopping her, meeting just to talk to her before she acted. She was aware of his wishes, of his moral code that was completely against what she was about to do, and she wanted to walk in line with that moral code to please him, to satisfy the feelings she still had for him, to make her feel as though she was still some part of his life. His morals still managed to have an influence on her actions, but it was weakening. Weakening as Lin had allowed something else to creep up and overtake her conscience, her emotions, like a parasite growing in Lin's mind, planted within her the day she was conceived, the day she completely changed her mother's life, and now it had fully grown and was nearly in complete control. Fueling a drive within her to protect her city, to bring justice to every force of evil, just as her mother had done, no matter the toll it would take on others or herself. She was weighed down by this duty of hers, and it pushed out every other concern within her until it would be all she cared about.

What made her become like this? What made her turn away from everyone in her life, remove herself from emotion and humanity? Lin concluded it was guilt. That was the closest thing she could think of. Unsure if that was she was actually feeling, if that was actually what was changing her. Guilt for putting those she loved in danger. Guilt for being the product of a disgusting and evil act against her mother. Guilt whenever she took part in any life experiences: friendship, family, love. Perhaps it was this guilt that made her feel she did not belong, she did not deserve that kind of life, a normal one spent with other people, because she was never intended to exist in the first place.

Perhaps her face to face with this man would lead her to an answer behind the reasons for this mentality Lin had grown into. Not much later, Lin was standing in front of the house she had sworn to leave behind in the deep recesses of her memory. Boarded up. Scarred by a flame. Surrounded by the towering factories filled with their artificial life. It stared at her like a monster, the house still settling like a massive exhale of repressed memories and the stink of secrets.

Indra did not hide. He did not set up defenses. He was just there, sitting at a table in the living room as she walked in, legs crossed, hands folded. Patiently waiting. As soon as she saw him, she recognized him. She felt his eyes and knew his voice before he even spoke. The man that, for years, Lin had seen in her day-to-day life, but he was always strangely unreachable. Standing on balconies but gone by the time she got to him. On other sides of dense crowds. Standing in the phone booth the day Toph had died, having called the ambulance.

But just his eyes. They were more familiar. She had known those eyes for as long as she could remember it seemed.

"I know you," Lin said.

"I know you, as well. I've been watching you for quite a while," he spoke. Confident. Old, but the body and voice of a man much younger. "I was fortunate enough to watch you as you grew up and no one even noticed me doing it. I have your mother's pride to thank for that, as well as her blindness. If she had released that picture, I probably would have refused to involve myself in your life so much, or at all. The slight plastic surgery seems unnecessary now. I definitely saw it coming."

"How have you been watching me?"

"Oh, I've frequently intervened in the lives of the Beifong family and all those associated. I had to. Sometimes I just watched and, well, took pictures," he directed her attention to a pile of photos of her at different ages on the table in front of him, "I've written notes about you. Kept track of your case. I couldn't leave. I couldn't give up. You were my pride and glory. My greatest creation from my ultimate experiment and, once I finally had the opportunity to mark you, we were eternally connected. I _cannot _focus on more than one case at a time."

"Why do you keep saying a 'case'?"

"That is what you are. That is why I did what I did to your mother. I don't care for revenge. I am not driven by hate, I am driven by my work. I seek the truth. I am a psychologist, I strive to learn everything about human nature and my latest experiments involved discovering the true nature of man. That when you place them in situations which threaten the things they hold most important, the walls and barriers all come down and man is reduced to his most primal instincts. He becomes an animal when driven by despair. The despair of their loss of money. Their loss of bending or material possessions. Loss of reputation. Loss of their image. They suffer and pitfall into a spiral of madness, broken, sometimes taking the form of violence, sometimes just insanity, or _guilt_. And animals can be completely predictable and, in some cases, controllable. But it was so interesting for me to see what these people did when threatened, when their shield was pierced and they had to make a difficult choice. And I see that they place themselves over everything. They put themselves before others, even your mother, who could have done so much more to stop me but held back because of her image. To sustain her walls and cover her scars from the eyes of the world. She represents absolute goodness to those people in your city, you see. She was exactly what I needed. People rely on that image of her, but I had seen the worst in all humans, even in the best of us, and I know that absolute goodness was not a possibility. The image had to be broken. To show that evil and darkness are inherent in all of us. It is what truly drove man in life. When we have a figure of absolute goodness fall into darkness, what hope is there for the rest of us? I had to open their eyes to the truth about humanity so that we could finally do what needs to be done."

* * *

Forty-three years prior from that moment. 113 ASC.

The Gold Room, the name of a popular club in the rising Republic City. A sophisticated club. A club with a bar holding only the highest quality alcohol. A club in which the members understood that the yuan was the currency but paid in gold because they did not carry the 'fake paper money'. Because they were worth it. The richest CEOs, the crazy business tycoons, the heirs of the wealthy and royal. The biggest egos in town.

It was with inquisitive eyes that these egos glared at the two men who did not seem to belong with the rest of the crowd. The two men who sat across from each other in large sofa chairs by the windows to the balcony overlooking the beautiful city, still in development. They looked through the glass and witnessed the uprising of what would be some of Republic City's most famous and iconic landmarks. The Future Industries tower. The Statue of Fire Lord Zuko. Even the Avatar was still just getting to his feet on Avatar Island, becoming the symbol of power, of leadership, of bravery.

"Something like that," one of the two men said. "I guess that is what they are trying to portray to us with these monuments." He put his cigarette out and sipped his drink. Seltzer water with a splash of rum, or more accurately rum with a splash of the carbonated water. He was able to handle it. He had recently finished college at the young age of only nineteen, so this kind of drinking was still familiar to him. The others at the bar had heard him order, but it wasn't the drink that attracted their attention. It was the man's appearance. He was young, but he looked as if he never stepped outdoors. Never bothered to clean himself or buy a new suit. The one he was wearing was obviously old, even a poor man on the street could tell that, so it was an immediate annoyance to the high class regulars of the Gold Room. The man had black hair. Messy. Glasses that were thick. Unattractive. Clothes with stains and tears. Disgusting. And yet, he smiled through this layer of ugliness at the man across from him dressed more appropriately for the environment, even though this other man was one year younger.

The other man wore a brown suit. Shoes shined. Hair combed. Face washed and shaven. Eyes glowing green. A frown on his face, not out of anger, but out of disinterest with his surroundings. He crossed his legs.

"You look like crap," the nicely dressed man said. He spoke without concern or worry, more just out of disgust and malice. Not even a second thought of what he had just said to the man who was supposed to be his superior.

"I don't have time for petty distractions and clichés. They let me in, didn't they?"

"Not sure why." The nicely dressed man lit a cigarette just as the other had put his out. He honestly didn't care about the other man's attire; he was just speaking his mind. He figured if any of the others staring at them had the balls to come up to them he would actually consider telling them to screw off. Although this poorly dressed individual was revolting to him whenever he came to his mind, something about the man kept the other coming back to him. Something about him ignited an interest, a purpose, a desire. And that was something the nicely dressed man hadn't experienced for a while.

"I'm an acquaintance of the manager. Amazing how fast this city is going up," the poorly dressed man said. He looked on in wonder until he turned again to face the other man. Seeing that he looked bored, he moved on. "So. I've heard about you. Devas Asura. You recently graduated. Only a little over a year after I. Also at an extremely young age."

"How do you know that?"

"I still keep in touch with several people from the university. Several professors who have spoken highly of you. Do you have plans of continuing your education?"

"Professor Ivan, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You know professor Ivan," the nicely dressed man, Devas, said. "That's how you were able to get in here. That is how you know about me. I did research under him. And not only is he a doctor in psychology, he's also responsible for one of the most luxurious in the city: the Gold Room. This place."

"Because he knows how people think," the poorly dressed man replied.

"Perhaps," Devas said, "or, he realized that the mind of the rich man is not very complex. Bought this place. Went into debt funding an extremely nice-looking bar. Advertised it as being rich. For rich. Rich, as in, keep out the poor. Exclusion of those that don't belong, to make those that supposedly _do _belong more special. Make the rich feel richer. I wonder how it has been going."

The poorly dressed man looked at him and pondered what he had said, then spoke. "Ivan has told me about you. I did not actually major in psychology like yourself. I thought biology was my path, but as I delved into the work I was interested in, I found few answers in that field of study. Most of my questions concerned the workings of the human mind, but I didn't know it yet. The question of how to predict and explain human behavior. It is so…chaotic. And yet, I think there is a pattern, even in the midst of the chaos. Would you agree?"

"In many cases, I can see how that is possible. In others, it is a stretch."

"Perhaps. Listen. Ivan told me you had trouble with your research. Is that true?"

"Yes. I hit some obstacles. My thesis and experimental data were not the quality he expected."

"Why is that?"

"Disinterest. Too much work at one time, leading to…disinterest."

"Your mind in too many different places?"

"Unfortunately, my downfall is my inability to work on more than one case at a time. When I have a single goal, a single test subject, a single experiment, my mind is completely overtaken by it, and I assure you that I work extremely well. My work forces my hand, it controls me. If it is all I focus on, it is my master, my driving force, I let it consume every thought and anything else in life takes a backseat. And in the end, my work is excellent," Devas said with confidence, a confidence that had been carried out through the entirety of the conversation. "Typical college, as you might remember, requires a lot from one student. Different projects, different cases at once. All different topics. Scattered, so my mind becomes scattered as well. My research was ignored and soon I just lost interest in it. So the end result was not very good, but Ivan apparently knows that I am capable of better. Is that why you are talking to me? A former grad to a recent one? Giving advice?"

The poorly dressed man had been there for that exact reason and a little more. He did not know what to expect, but the way Devas talked, with such certainty in his words, was so calming but at the same time almost frightening. It was as if he would have a coherent answer for everything. Ready. Without any emotion in the words. Just a matter-of-fact. Only facts. What was on this man's mind?

Psychoanalyzing. That was one of the additional tasks the poorly dressed man had come to accomplish. Get in the Devas's head, but as he did, he felt that he had been caught. He felt his thoughts were being heard, and Devas simply stared at him. Simply stared and puffed his cigarette, aware of what was going on. One step ahead. A cold sweat appeared, then it was gone. The meeting had to continue. There was no adversity, no conflict, no qualms between the two men.

But as the green eyes of this nicely dressed man bore into his soul, he felt there was something wrong. Hatred? Contempt? Something more than the obvious disgust. Dormant.

"So then. I am inferring that since your research is being ignored, you have some other project you are focusing all of your attention on right now? That you are devoting all of your brainpower toward?"

"When I am not drinking."

"Is that a yes?"

Devas put his cigarette out, but didn't take his eyes off of the other man. He smiled condescendingly, briefly, then lit another cigarette. "Listen. You have your opinion of me, and I don't care what it is. The thing is, you interest me, but not you as a person, not your small talk, not your opinions. Your ideas interest me. So tell me what is on your mind."

The other man sighed. "Ivan has hopes for you. You are a smart kid. Your are still young, but he doesn't want to see such potential go to waste. I mean come on, you're only eighteen. And you've already gotten to this point in your life? Ivan wants you to be successful. He wants you to continue your research. _Your _research. He knows you will find something. Change the world."

"And what about you? What do you want?"

"You remind me of myself. Your interests. The kind of work you are tending toward. I have been looking for a companion in my work. I think the direction you have been leaning toward, you will find something that will inevitably be of use to me with my current project. I have a personal interest in you, but I am not going to beg you to work with me. I only ask that you continue, because I know something will come as a result. Something I could use. Something to help this world understand itself."

"What exactly are you doing right now?"

"I favored biology because I wanted to learn more about bending. The ability to control the elements, it is so appealing to me. I wanted to understand it. How it works. Where it comes from. What part of our bodies allow it? Why do we have it at all? I soon realized that biology would tell me nothing. I was not looking in the correct place to answer these questions. Nobody understood exactly how bending worked, and the ones that supposedly 'know' the best only know in a more spiritual way. And so I thought about the spirits, our creators, and I thought about the way this world was created. Obviously, I am no guru. I am no Avatar. I cannot speak to spirits. So I looked to history. I looked at bending, its place in society, its role. How it affected the mind of the human. How it established power, control. How it was so envied. And I lost track of my old passion, to discover the truth behind bending, and instead took interest in a new one. Observing how bending warps the mind of the human, how it helps some survive, how it helps others kill. There are so many questions. I have yet to answer them, or even know what questions still remain. Perhaps it goes even further than bending. I do not know. That is why I need you. The more people like you tackling such difficult questions…the knowledge we could obtain is unreal…"

"So that is what you want me to research? The nature of mankind?"

"Looking at your record, it seemed like you would go in that direction no matter what. Am I correct?"

"Possibly. I am not going to work _with _you."

"Fine with me. I have another who will accompany me on a trip. Exploring the world, learning more about our history, about bending, as much as we can gather. Using our past as the key to understanding who we are today, and not so much where bending comes from, but how it is viewed. How it has shaped us. I will be leaving Republic City next week."

Devas did not care. He put his second cigarette out and stood up. He straightened his suit jacket and checked the time. "Well, I will think about it. I must be heading out unless there is anything else?"

Putting his drink down, the other man looked up at him through his old glasses. "Just quickly, I want to return to what we were talking about before. About patterns in the chaotic nature of mankind. You said you would believe it to be true in most cases, that there is a pattern. That man is predictable. And if he is predictable, if the correct environment is laid out for him, if certain conditions are in place set by some absolute ruler, then man is controllable even if they have 'free will'. Mankind is controllable and therefore, a whole world is controllable."

"In many cases," the other man said, reflecting on the man's words, "I agree. Man's actions can be so predictable sometimes. But there is randomness. And that randomness can truly destroy this control you are speaking about. Perhaps it is not so much randomness, but just something that doesn't fit your prediction."

"Like what?"

"Empathy. Humans tend to go against instinct, against intuition, place themselves in situations that would harm themselves for the purpose of protecting someone they feel empathy for. I feel that accurately randomizes your 'world'."

"What if there was a way to eliminate the randomness to the point where it was negligible?"

"Most humans possess empathy. Most humans have the capacity to love and feel concern for others. It would be difficult to negate that, don't you think?"

"You would be surprised what people will succumb to under the right conditions. Not only surprised, but appalled, at the lengths to which man will reduce itself under the right circumstances. A creature that willingly forgets those it 'loves' or 'shows empathy for' and will even kill if it means it is better off. As long as it has what it needs, it will forget its 'concern for others'. They all will shed this outer layer, this façade that they disguise themselves with to please the world. Proving that it is nothing more than a mask to hide their true nature, their true desire. They are all tainted like this."

The man's words revolved around Devas's mind. Refusing to leave. They were haunting, yet interesting, as he had hoped this meeting would be to him. He looked up to the man in disgusting clothes and smiled.

"What is that, my good man?" the poorly dressed man asked.

"I'm not sure yet." Devas quickly dismissed the smile. "We'll see where it goes. We'll see what questions I discover. Nice talking to you, Graft. See you soon."

* * *

"I started my experiment not long after that. And something happened to me after what I saw. Every man and woman became so predictable. They were all so quick to give in to darkness, to take away from others and destroy and kill just to keep the material possessions and power they held dear. There was no chaos, no empathy or love or sacrifice. I found myself in complete control of these individuals because I could find their one or many flaws that I could rip open so easily, allowing the evil to course through their veins as by that point I could just tell them to do whatever I wanted and they would do it no matter the consequence. It was fascinating watching humans become animals, watching their lives flip upside down because of one simple tear in the fabric of their whole structure. A tear that existed on every human, all of them imperfect, all of them so willing to turn to evil to cover up this imperfection. It was not long until I realized how aware I had become of our own nature, and I seemed to be the only one who was. I stepped back from it, from humanity, and allowed myself to become something else because I knew I had to be. I could not continue holding this information, this dark truth about mankind and do nothing about it. I constructed a weapon out of myself, and that was what I became: a weapon that would rid the world of these evils. There was no way to save this world except through the deaths of these people."

Lin sat across from him at the table, leaning back in her chair, listening to the story. Hands folded. "You have great expectations from us, then. Surely you could not have tested everyone. Surely one person would be the exception?"

Indra smiled. "I'm glad you asked. Because that was what I was trying so long to prove. I had good people doing terrible things. Hard-working, loving mothers killing their families. Charity workers blowing up hospitals. They were wrapped around my finger once I found their flaws. But my work went unnoticed. People chose to ignore the truth left behind on every body of every test subject I had no choice but to kill. Only when people would become aware of their own impurities would my job start to get done. And yet no one did."

"Or they just chose not to. Because they did know, but they just tried to live with it, like we all do."

"Perhaps, but I didn't know, and I had to, once and for all. I had to see what was truly inherent in man. And then your mother comes along, steps into the playing field and catches my interest. The woman, the warrior to your people, the great Toph Beifong, victor over the imperialistic Old Fire Nation Air Force, founder of metalbending, bringer of justice and peace, representing all that was good. If there was any way to show the whole world what I was finally aware of, I knew I would have to use her.

* * *

Thiry-nine years prior. 118 ASC.

The office of Professor Ivan.

"Devas. Devas. Thank you for coming in today," Ivan said. He was an exceptionally tall man. Old. Long gray hair. Knowledge engraved into his wrinkled skin. A brain practically leaking facts about mankind that would seem trivial to most, but nevertheless interesting.

Devas Asura sat across the desk. He didn't respond. "I don't answer to that name anymore."

"Oh, forgive me," Ivan said, angrily. "You go by 'Indra' now? Well you can forget that name! You think anyone is going to want to hire you or read a single paper by you if you go by that name? After everything you have done? After all the murders?"

"Oh, I still go by Devas Asura in my work. All my research papers are by him."

"By _you,"_ Ivan corrected. "And what research is that? Threatening and scarring and murdering innocent people?"

"Innocence is long gone in all of these individuals and has been for while, now. I'm starting to wonder how a race so flawed was created in the first place. A race that would choose the destruction of its own kind rather than choose something civil like peace."

"And you think you are any different? You have been killing countless of your own kind. Look, I don't know what project you undertook but I won't allow it to continue that is for sure. Do you know how difficult it was getting your ass out of prison? Do you know how much therapy you need to do, how much probation you are on, the number of restraining orders, and to top it all off, the stress I am going through now that I am your new 'caretaker'?"

"I'm sorry I've been such an inconvenience to you, Ivan," Devas said without any sincerity.

"Look...Indra, get rid of that name. Forget it. Whatever experiment you were conducting, forget that too. I'm making you start fresh. It's the only way to clear your name and erase everything you have done."

"Those things will never be forgotten," Devas said, holding his hand up to show the professor his missing fingers, the fingers that Toph had sliced clean off, scar tissue covering the wounds. "She has initiated it, Ivan. She has given me the go-ahead to conduct my next and greatest experiment. One that I believe will last for quite a while."

"What? What are you talking about? Who?"

"The greatest of them all in the mind of this world. The 'flawless and invincible' woman who hath slain me, who thinks her walls can continue to protect her forever but forgetting that she has one minuscule chink in her armor that I have finally discovered." Devas stood up. Ivan stepped back, legitimately scared at what his former student has become, and even more scared that it may have been him, Ivan, that was the cause of all this. He had nowhere to go pressed up against the walls of his office, thinking that the man across the desk was going to kill him. But Devas just looked at him, smiling.

Ivan wanted to do something at that moment. He had a gun in his desk. He could end the madness before it continued, before Devas's next case of killing and destruction began. But he was paralyzed by this man's stare. His smile. His insanity. He could almost feel his own mind infiltrated by Devas, his thoughts heard, a new voice speaking over his conscience, holding him back. Showing Ivan the future that awaited the professor if he were to end Devas here in his office. Ruination. The loss of everything he had attained in his life. His family would turn against him. His research would be contaminated. His life's work tainted. The fear kept him standing in place as Devas walked out of his office like a ghost. He knew that Devas knew. That there was no need for him to kill the professor. Ivan had written his own death sentence in his stubborn belief that Devas could be saved. Devas did not have to worry about the man stopping him. Ivan did not have a future of ruination. His life was already ruined. Ivan did not have a future. And Devas did not even have to pull the trigger.

* * *

Indra had a cup of tea sitting on the table. Lin refused his offer of one for herself. He took a sip.

"The woman who was invincible, impenetrable. I found her fatal flaw easily: her ego. Her self-image. I entered into her mind through that breach and installed within her a fear that would follow her for the rest of her life, a fear of me,a fear for your life, and a fear of what her people would think when they discovered that their great, invulnerable leader had been defeated. When she had fallen. And not only fallen, but would forsake the good of all of her people just so that she could protect her image. I wanted to see if she would ever release to the public or at least her fellow officers what had happened to her in order to make it easier to find me. But she never did. She felt she was too important of a model to her people to admit such a failure like that. So she did not, and you suffered because of it. I was correct. Even the 'best' fell."

Lin could not make herself drink anything if she tried. The information told to her was settling throughout her whole body, but it was not disturbing her like she expected. She was not trembling like she would have if she were twenty years younger. She just thought about everything Indra had said. As if they were nothing more than two friends, and one was trying to find questions to ask the other.

"My mother was your project."

Indra did not respond. Lin continued.

"Why didn't you mark her?"

"So you know of the mark, then?"

"I know the whole case about you. I found my mother's old report."

"Then you know that I can only focus on one person at a time?"

"Okay."

"Your mother was only a component in the experiment. I did not see it fit to mark her. I was not about to conclude that _she _would be my focus. It was never my intention to use her for anything, by that I mean to predict her or control her. With Toph I merely wanted to watch her, observing her reactions. To prove my point about humanity even if it did involve a slight intervention by me to unveil her imperfection and really make the experiment interesting. But it was the result of this intervention of mine that I truly wanted to _use. _It was you that would be my subject, the focus of my experiment, anticipating the day you would enter this world and grow and the conclusions you would make about those that inhabit this planet. A child born from a broken myth, and not only born from it, but also the cause of that myth's destruction. The walking, living, breathing evidence of man's inherent evil. The manifestation of all of our flaws and downfalls that inevitably rule our lives and cause us to forever fall into darkness. And not only would you be the proof, the example, but you would be the savior. I branded you because you were special to me. Nothing silly when it came to you, my dear. I was not about to make you go plant any bombs or murder any helpless children. You were of a different type. A superior breed. Outside the hand of anything in this world save for a few things, love being one of them. But I knew I could destroy that connection easily, just like the connection I destroyed between you and your mother. The connection between you and your boyfriend. And I hardly needed to do anything. I could just plant the smallest seed, sit back and watch it grow and tear you apart from everything that makes you feel human. Sit right under your noses the whole time and you did not even know it. And what is more is, you could not escape me."

Lin thought the man was speaking in riddles again until she realized what he meant. "The crawlspaces. That was you."

"Do you ever wonder why those rather large crawlspaces existed? Do you ever wonder how I know the ins and outs of this household? I was hoping Sokka would mention something about it. He was always quarreling over the design when it did not seem correct."

Sokka had mentioned the builder. The one with gloves. Who spoke in low mumbles and had horrible handwriting and constructed the house with an abundance of hollowed-out spaces. The man with green eyes.

"You built this house," Lin said.

"How fitting, right? The father builds the house for his family to live safely while he watches over them. The father who watches his daughter grow and enjoys seeing her happy in her younger years with her mother, learning to become a lethal crime-fighting earthbender, spending her nights with her beloved airbender, and dreaming of the day I would force you to leave all of that and become what I had intended you to be."

"You took those pictures of Tenzin and me. You called the ambulance the day my mother died because you were here. And you led me to all those places where I was almost _killed_ by the worst of people out there."

"People who had delved so deep into darkness that they had no idea what was right or wrong anymore. Devoid of a conscience such that the idea of killing other humans had so little impact on them that they would willingly perform the act for a quick buck. The 'worst of people', but really, no different than any other human out there. Those assassins did terrible things, but what separates their evil from the evil your mother fell to? People suffered because her ego was too large and kept her from potentially putting an end to me. She helped to bring this world down to a more dangerous state because of her omission. In my mind, she has no better standing than those assassins. Your encounters with them were entirely planned by me. I practically told you where to go, where you thought you would meet with me, that moment of confrontation, and you didn't even know you were being pulled by strings. The reason is two-fold: the assassins had to go down. So you see? I helped you catch some pretty bad people. And I knew they were bad. But did you notice what these 'bad' people did with their time otherwise? They were regular people: doctors and teachers and parents. Caring for the innocent and killing them at the same time.

"The other reason was that I wanted to see your true power. And I did, and I was happy. You stood your ground every time, something inside you kept you alive against mechanisms that would have killed even the most powerful human. Guns and knives and fire and fists and even a car for goodness sake. I was not upset that those assassins did not succeed; it was what I hypothesized. I was thrilled. I don't know what was driving you, but I have no doubt that you're the deadliest human on this planet and not even death could stop you. You are beyond this humanity, so I guess my only role in all of this is to push you in the right direction. To open your eyes and see what I have seen. To become fully aware of the true nature of man and completely remove yourself from it so that you can fight to fix it. I've sought every way possible but there is no better solution than death. Death, and out of the ashes and bodies will come a new race of people like you and me who will be exempt from the flaws of this world and reign supreme as unstoppable forces herding the sheep of the weak humans that inhabit our civilization."

The man's words were beyond anything Lin could have fathomed in regards to the reasons for her existence, but in all of its insanity, Lin had the slightest inclination to believe that if such a future were to come true, where she would have no ties to humanity and simply act as some all-powerful force like the one her mother was believed to be, holding a supremacy over the mind of humans and controlling them...Indra would be the only one who was able to do it. And Lin was his tool. His key to unlock the door to that world, a world so unimaginable and unattainable until the one named Indra stuck his hand out to set the gears in motion.

"I won't be part of your plan, Indra. I've come to stop you."

"Of course you have. You are the only one who can. And I have no doubt that you will succeed in making this heart of mine stop beating, but as long as yours continued to do the opposite, I will never be truly dead. A piece of me is the essence of your existence, and you will carry that with you. Toph knew that. I can never truly be destroyed as long as you live. You are not just a daughter. You are my invention, my ultimate weapon, to rid this world of its evil. And it starts with your complete removal from your humanity in the only way possible: by killing another human being, namely, me. And you are going to do it."

"You're sick, Indra. I won't let you control me. I won't do what you say, anymore!"

"Honey, you are my creation. You belong to me. And you don't have a choice." Indra clenched his three-fingered hand into a fist, the two blades that had last been used to cut Lin's face, once again ejecting out of his hand, through his scarred skin, the cold metal covered in blood. The mechanism in his arm pushed the two blades out and he quickly leaned forward and swung his fist across the table at Lin, attempting to cause a whole mess of new scars on her face. Lin, barely in time, leaned back in her wooden chair just as the blades nearly grazed her face, just centimeters away. She fell onto her back and rolled backwards, getting onto her feet.

Indra stood and with strength that one would not expect from a man his age, grabbed the table with one hand and forcefully threw it across the room right at Lin. She dodged, shot and wrapped her metal cables around the projectile and sent it back toward Indra It flew past him as he moved, crashing into the kitchen cabinets and breaking to pieces.

Lin redirected her cables and wrapped them around Indra's arm, the arm with the blade mechanism. She released her other cable to grab his other arm and dragged him toward her. Lin placed her foot on his chest and from her sleeve let the small knife which was identical to the two knives protruding from Indra's knuckles drop into her right hand. The knife he had delivered to her and told her to use. Feeling compelled to cut the man up and deliver to him the sentence he deserved with the very weapon he had created himself. She meant the knife, but she realized that it was not this that was the weapon any longer which was most precious to Indra. It was her. It was Lin. He did not think of her as a daughter, more as a tool, but she still felt something was wrong about killing the man who had brought her into existence. The distant words and morals of Tenzin on their last thread in her mind about to be cut loose and gone forever but still able to be heard by her, begging her to stop what she was doing. She had him now. She could knock him out. Put him in jail. Put him in solitary confinement. Send him to a deserted island. Anything...anything but kill him, Tenzin would say.

Lin let the grip of her cables loose. She put the knife in her pocket and stepped back from her father, who started to get up. Indra looked slightly anxious and upset. Lin pushed her hair out of her face and ran her hand through it a few more times. It was not just the act of taking a life that was the hardest part of this confrontation. So many things crept into her head. Her humanity. Indra's intentions for her. The future of her relationship with the man she loved so much. The amount of hate she had for knives when it came to using them for violence and especially killing. The actual act of killing almost had no place in her decision. It was just a fear of what her life would become once she went through with this. What would keep her tied to this planet? To these people? What would connect her now that her mother was gone, once Tenzin lost his love for her and found someone else to start a family, when she was alone and had nothing?No one.

Indra got to his feet and looked at her. Waiting.

_I could not possibly have that kind of life. The life that Tenzin wants. The life my mother had up until I was born, the life that I shattered by being this man's creation. I'm sorry. I'm sorry Tenzin, I can't give you what you want. _

_I wish you would not let go of me, but I know you have to._

_I am sorry mother. I am sorry I destroyed everything you were. Everything you knew about yourself._

_I don't belong here. I don't belong with anyone. I don't deserve their happiness._

_I will do the only thing I can._

The only thing she knew she could do. The only thing that would keep her tied to this world in some way, tied to her humanity that she barely felt anymore, preventing Indra's future and continuing her mother's work as a way of relieving her guilt. The only thing, the only way to still feel human even though she would be relinquishing nearly every essential aspect about it.

The Police Department. The role of the justice bringer. A justice bringer who could not afford to be swayed by human emotions, by the moral codes of others in her life, who could not afford to hold valuable relationships and feel connected with others.

Tenzin's voice disappeared. Every notion of morality and empathy and compassion was suddenly wiped from Lin's mind. She looked at Indra and only a single thought ran through her now stabilized mind.

"What are you doing?" he said, angrily. He started to approach her.

That this man was a threat.

"Come on! Do it!

That the city was in danger because of him.

"You don't think I'll hold back from murdering your beloved citizens?"

That no person or prison could ever keep this man from his mission.

"Your city will burn!"

That the only way this man could be stopped was in death, and that Lin hated using knives. Her brain nothing more than a decision-making device. That when other means are possible, avoid knives. There was something easier. Something that did not involve contact or thought. Something mindless.

"You have no choice, Lin! You have no choice!"

Lin drew her six-shooter handgun from a hidden holster within her uniform and shot Indra in the head as he began to run toward her with his knives. The _bang _was drowned out by the sounds of the tireless machines in the factories continuing their endless work but nevertheless watching over Lin as she ended the life of the man who created hers.

He fell to the floor. Lin felt almost nothing as she watched the life of her father leave his body. His heart cease. She watched death take her mother, and she had brought it to her father.

But, as poetic as it sounded to her, she was not completely devoid of a reaction. Lin felt the slightest tinge of pain, the faintest trace of sadness. And it did not have to do with the death of her father, but the fact that she was the killer. And it was not pain because of what she had done, it was pain because she did not feel any pain. Sadness because she was not sad.

_Inhuman._


	17. Manases: Scars

-Manases: Scars-

The fattened folder sat on the table in front of him. Bulging out, the documents and notes and photographs that pieced together the secret lives of Lin and Toph Beifong. Manases looked at it, the complete story. The amazing, revealing, and extremely valuable one. One that he was supposed to turn in that evening to an organization that would print and reprint and sell the story to every newspaper and station and every mind of every citizen because it is _interesting._

But more importantly, it rewrites the lives and the entire image of two extremely revered women. Two women who sacrifice themselves for the safety of their people, who deserve nothing but respect, but the story in front of Manases would forever shadow the good deeds of these women with their failures, and he feared that the writers and reporters would highlight only these imperfections when placing the two women in history.

_They don't deserve that._

Manases was tired. He had been up late, trying to force Lin's tale from last night to settle in his head, but he kept going through it over and over. He thought about her, Lin, going to work this morning, sitting at her desk or riding around the city punishing criminals. She was the fictional character again in his head, as opposed to the oddly human representation of her he was met with the previous night, and it _was _odd. And it was odd that it was odd, that some person acting human makes others feel strange. That she had her vices after a stressful day at work and these vices were just like any other. A few drinks. Smoking every now and then. Perhaps just another way she tries to be a part of this world.

_A part of this world? She is beyond any of us._

Lin's story had changed the man. He could not scrape it off of his mind for even a second. He did not want to take part in any activity because everything about him was consumed by this woman's life. By her father's intentions for her, by her acceptance of the life she now lives. A life of avoiding the future that her father planned out. Always having his death on her shoulder, reminding her that killing was a possible solution, that there are evil people out there and some of them will not stop unless they are dead. And she had to know when to draw the line, when the person's crime was too illegal, when a person was evil enough that taking their life was rational. How does one measure the degree of a person's crime? If Lin were to lose sight of that, anyone could be seen as evil, anyone could be killed.

Lin would not fall to that. She was different. Although she tried to be, she just was not the same as everyone else. She would not lose sight of justice. Justice was everything about her. She has this desire to still be defined as human, but she is nothing short of a force of nature.

_Lin. Just submit it. Just submit the story and get it off of your mind. Why is it even still on it, anyway?_

Because they are similar. Because they share something. Manases felt somehow connected to Lin when she spoke to him, like they were on a similar tier when she told him her story. Both somehow beyond this world in some way. Manases felt strange about his own life at that moment. About where he had come from. If he even came from anywhere, from anyone. This task of his, all for what? For fame or for money? Was that it? He did not fully understand his own purpose for being here and for completing this job. The details of his own life were becoming less concrete.

_You attend an school. What school? What university? _

_You have a job. What job? Working for who? Doing what?_

_You have a gift that others do not have. People like talking to you. They will open up to you, tell you things they would not normally tell others. Does anyone else have that gift?_

Manases felt the urge to leave. He picked up his collection of documents and drove to the one place that seemed to be almost beckoning him, just like it had beckoned her thirteen years ago. The house in the metal hollow on the outskirts of the city, other side of the water. The hollow ruled by machines. The house looked different in the daylight. O-Ren was most likely out patrolling. Manases stood before the abode. The burn marks more noticeable now. Near the windows and the front door. He touched them, the scar on the house, and almost felt the years put away in it by the Beifongs. He felt the emptiness as most recent, the violence, the tension, the regret and the anger and the fear. However, he moved his hand across the wall to a section that was not burned, and the dark memories turned to something different.

Two women. A mother and her daughter. One training the other in earthbending, and expressing her praise while the other cheered over her success. He saw family gatherings, Toph's lifelong friends coming for dinner, for drinks, to sit and talk and have fun and enjoy each other while Lin played with Aang's children. He went back further. Lin was just a young girl. He saw dinner time, Lin sitting at the table picking at her food, excitedly telling her mother of her day at school. He saw Aang's daughter, Kya, combing Lin's hair, unable to stop talking to Toph about how beautiful her daughter's hair was. He saw Lin standing against the wall while Sokka measured how tall she was and marked it on the wall for everyone to see, or feel, how much she had grown. He saw Lin and Tenzin on the front porch, waiting for the airbender's father to show up, talking, holding hands, blushing. Lin was smiling. Smiling as she was probably about five and her mother gently tucked her into bed. Toph couldn't see the smile, but it was contagious enough that one formed on her face as well. Lin yawned and drifted off to sleep as Toph told her one of her daughter's favorite bedtime stories: a slightly exaggerated tale from her own childhood, her own time in the war against the Old Fire Nation.

Manases saw Lin, asleep, peaceful, and Toph placed her hand on her daughter, gently rubbing her arm, unable to contain her happiness, her appreciation for being the parent of the child she loved so much, a child she just wanted to hug and never let go, grateful that the most horrible experience of her life had resulted in the birth of Lin, the most wonderful person she could ever know. She kissed her daughter on the forehead. _Goodnight, Lin. I love you.  
_

Stepping back into the street, Manases looked around. Concrete for miles. Tiny blades of grass struggling to survive in the cracks of the road. He held his story in his hands. The bulky folder of repressed memories told to no one but him. Manases, the caretaker of these two women's most sensitive information. Like a roll of tape, he saw his surroundings rewind as he went through the story starting with the present and working his way back. Day turned to night as Lin arrived in front of him and put a bullet in the head of her own father then disposed of the body.

The factories unbuilt themselves as time went back further. The window boards were removed and the house became engulfed in flames, but instead of ruin, the house after the fire storm was restored to its original state. No more burns. Glass in the windows. Once again inhabited by Lin as she took care of her dying mother Toph. A period of vacancy, then he saw the younger Toph raising an even younger Lin. The memories he had just felt when touching the house playing out before him like a movie. Factories now scarce. Grass abundant. The sky blue rather than covered with smog. A pleasant meadow filled with natural life now.

The factories continued to disappear. Nature took over. He went back further. The house disassembled itself and soon he was standing in an empty field next to Toph Beifong herself. Toph, as she surveyed the vast, uninhabited land, late in her pregnancy, her stomach bulging out. Feeling the dirt, the earth, its quality, determining that this would be the place in which she would raise her child. Her daughter. No knowledge of the torment her future years would bring. Wrestling with her concerns of the whereabouts of the man who had succeeded in breaking her. The man who would leave a scar on Toph for the rest of her life.

"I loved my mother," Lin said the night before. "She was a good person. Not the best, but no one is. Indra, he told me she had her faults, and I knew of them as well. He said people have evil within them and they deserve to either die, or they must be controlled by the ones who are aware of their own nature, someone like him. I told him that I disagreed. People struggle everyday between good and evil, over doing the right thing. My mother was just one of them. I know these citizens realize that, they know she was not perfect, they are intelligent enough to understand that she had her faults but they do not want to remember her for them. They were at peace with the little information that they knew about her. Sure, sometimes we fail. Sometimes we can fall so low and forget about morality or conscience and just do. Just be and act without any concern. But we can always climb out of it. We can always change if we choose to. And in some cases, for some of us, we even have scars that remind us of our downfalls. Of our imperfections. And they can either be covered up and ignored or we can allow them to be seen and push us to better ourselves. It's never easy to face those scars, no matter how long they exist...it's just like the scar on my own face, or it can be a person, a daughter, just like myself. Me, the scar on my mother's whole life. The incarnation of her downfall. And she had to feel it everyday when she felt my heart beat, and when I realized that was what I was to my mother...well, you start to reevaluate your whole existence." Lin was standing now, looking off into the bright city glowing with light and love and joy and happiness and beauty. "You start to ask if any of this belongs to you. If you deserve the pleasures and essentials of this world. Whether or not I did, I cannot afford to feel love or friendship or companionship. Some are meant to be with people. And others, like me, are just different. My job has completely ruled it out. My job is my only function anymore."

The Friday had gone by quickly. O-Ren would be returning soon to the house. The sun was going down on Metal Hollow. Manases walked back to his car. A metal barrel filled halfway to the top with garbage sat next to the phone booth he usually made calls from. Trash from years ago, it seemed. Papers from 165 ASC.

_What do you want me to do?_ He remembered asking Tenzin.

Manases looked into the barrel. What garbage was this that people had thrown out at _this_ trash can of all the places in the city? The machine noises echoed off the tin walls of the barrel.

_Just forget. Please, just let it go, give it up, and forget it all._

_Just forget. Forget it all._

"It is strange," Lin said the night before. "I've never told that story. There are some people out there who are special, Mr. Ridha. If that is your real name, I am not really sure. But there are people who have become something more, or less, than just human. Separating them. I've seen them. The ones I have seen, these 'gifted' individuals, most use themselves to do bad things. I'm sure you have heard of my secret journeys a while back. Anyway, why I say this, I believe you have some kind of gift as well. Something that separates you. People like talking to you, don't they? You are the perfect listener and people will enjoy telling you their secrets, and that can be dangerous, as well as extremely useful. You be careful what you devote that gift of yours toward."

Manases dropped the lighter into the metal trash can down the street from the Beifong house. Blue and orange and red spat up at his face. The fat folder of his notes and documents, his proof, on top of the piles of old trash, adding to the forgotten and disposed memories. The entire story. The Beifong women. All the facts and everything he had dug up. Set ablaze. The paper turning black and crumbling into tiny pieces of charred, thin lumber.

Manases walked over to the phone and dialed. A voicemail answered. He spoke into the receiver.

"It's me...I know I am supposed to be there in about an hour, but I am not going to be there. I am not going to have your story. I figured it out. I figured it all out. I got the whole story and every dark secret and the reasons behind every event and action. It's in my head right now, but the evidence, the documentation, it's gone forever. And you...you won't get it from me. It is not for you to know. It is not for anyone to know unless she says otherwise. You know who I mean. If you want the story, you will have to go to her. That is the only way to do it. It is the right way to do it. As for me, you will not see me ever again. I am gone from your organization. Do not come looking for me. Do not try calling me. You will not find me. You will never speak to me again or know what I know from _my_ own mouth. My eyes have been opened. I am sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for the opportunity. Goodbye."

Manases hung up the phone and walked down the street as the sun went down. The world became dark as he headed away from the city, away from the streetlamps dimly lighting the street, into a wall of darkness with nothing but the machines. Wondering if it would ever be different for him, for her. If something would ever happen that would change the course of her life.

"I'm not sure," she had said. "Like I said, I don't plan on changing. I just think to myself whether something, or someone, will come along one day and change everything that I have felt about myself, about my life and my place in this world."

Manases kept walking until he could not see anything around him. His car left behind, just another abandoned satomobile to add to the collection of left behind cars. He passed several more cars and an old motorcycle in the road. The sight of it made him stop. Looking around, he thought about others who had done the same, left their cars here, abandoning everything. Others like him. Like Lin. Who did not belong, who just left the world, walked into the darkness amidst the machines. Nothing but the cold metal endlessly working without any knowledge of why they are here.

**The End**

**/* Thanks for reading those that did. I hope it was enjoyable! :) I enjoyed writing it as I always do. I really tried to fit the events in with the timeline of the actual Avatar series, things like Lin's birth, Yakone, Toph's death and Lin's age at certain times, etc. **

**Welp, again, thanks those that read through it! Have a good one.*/**


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